Simmer
by Xleste
Summary: Set post-"Inevitable", Castle and Beckett have decided to take the next steps on the journey beyond their working partnership. Castle/Beckett.
1. Chapter 1

**Simmer**

_Disclaimer_: I don't own Castle - just inspired by it.

_Backstory_: This takes place after "Inevitable", beginning with what was supposed to be their first date on an upcoming Friday evening, but life has a way of getting in the way.

_Author's Note: _I anticipated this being three short chapters, each covering three very different kinds of dates. I very nearly titled this "A Non-Date and Two Dates". I realized though, that I'd really miss writing the other characters if this were JUST Castle/Beckett, so interludes involving Alexis, Esposito, Ryan, and Lanie may appear, extending this.

_Update 06/02/2010:_ I wasn't happy with this chapter so I rewrote some of it. I decided to switch back to past-tense (and every time I read it, I keep finding more verbs to fix). I apologize for the ongoing tense issues. It drives me nuts too AND I appreciate those kind folk who point them out.

**The Non-Date**

All hell broke loose on one of their cases that Thursday early in the morning. A murder accomplice turned witness was nearly gunned down, and Beckett got word that a perp she'd tried to put away years ago for murdering a young mom may get early parole on a technicality and those cases really got to her. Long after she made Castle go home that night, he knew she was still at the precinct trying to wrap things up.

He showed up at the precinct on Friday afternoon after spending the morning promoting Nikki Heat, far more concerned about her real life inspiration. Dark circles were under her eyes, and Montgomery was clearly trying to get her to go home. Castle made a couple of calls before adding his proverbial weight to the conversation, after gauging that Beckett as just tired enough to (maybe) let him.

"So...raincheck on our night out? Why don't I take you home and we just do a mellow night in?"

She ran her hand through her hair impatiently, and sat back in her seat with an air of exhaustion. (And really, all she wanted was a hot soak and a good book.) "I'm sorry...look..."

He cut her off, softening his voice. "I get the hours. I know the routine." He tried charm next, with a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. "I've got take-out from Wah Fung being delivered to your place and Alexis is sending over my entire DVD boxed set of Battlestar Galactica. How about that?"

"Castle, I don't need to be taken care of. There's a ton of paperwork." She fixed him with the evil death stare that's made other mortals quake, all the more scary because her eyes are a little red from lack of sleep.

He pushed back gently with, "Does it really need to be done right now?"

She considered it...and considered it some more. She glanced back at the screen where her work was starting to get sloppier by her high standards, and then she looked at him watching her solemnly, with a steadfast look in his eyes that made her heart flip-flop and the solitary bath seem less appealing. She gave in with a soft huff. "Okay, but only if you got me those flat noodles I like."

* * *

She was silent the whole drive home, and he knew it'd been a long week between his information about her mother and all the crap at the station. When they got to her place, he suggested with a playful waggle of his eyebrows, "Why don't you change into something comfortable?". It earned the intended eye-roll from her, and she headed to her bedroom as the doorbell rang. Letting him deal with the food, she donned loose fitting yoga pants and a sweater. She glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out, with a little tired twist to her lips. Not exactly what she'd been thinking for a first date with Castle.

By the time she wandered back into the living room, he'd gotten the food plated, the DVD player set up, and a cozy, mindless evening-in prepped, taking up the best seat on the couch. She smiled at him, snared her chopsticks and the coveted noodles, and settled in, keenly aware of him by her side, of the ease of familiarity and the edge of something different. He'd rarely been to her home, but eating takeout and listening to him make color commentary peppered with extraneous information was soothing, normal...fun. It took the edge off her day, and he made her laugh. Having someone at home, sharing the evening after a hard day - that was new, and there was a sweetness that she didn't want to let herself get used to or think about too much just yet.

Episodes of Battlestar Galactic flickered across the screen, while Castle kept up his running mouth til she made him shut up by stuffing a fortune cookie in his mouth. (Man, he really hated this Anders character.) She felt herself relax against the warmth of him, and it felt easy...and somehow just plain safe...to let her eyes close, for just a moment...

He felt like a teenager again, and even tried the yawn-arm-stretch move to wrap his arm around her shoulder, feeling the slim lines of her frame come to rest with greater pressure against his side in a way that evoked his protective side. His senses felt alert and alive to the nuances, any shifts in weight she made, any subtle movements. When her head came to rest against his shoulder, he curved his arm a little tighter around her and wondered what other moves he could make til the tiny snore tipped him off that she'd fallen sound asleep.

His smile turned a little wry. It'd been a really long time since he's stayed up just to watch a woman sleep, and that's all he does once he's turned the TV off with the remote control. He liked watching Kate in all of her forms, but asleep is something different. Her face lacks the guardedness of day, enchanting him in a different way.

Eventually, he picked her up and carried her to bed. He considered undressing her (just so she'd be more comfortable…) but decided it's not worth losing his life over, or waking her. He also thought about kissing her, but he'd really rather she be awake for that After a moment of uncertainty, he settled onto the couch rather than go home, propping a pillow behind his head and looking around her apartment before drifting off to sleep himself.

* * *

She woke up to soft light filtering into her room, and the heavenly smell of pancakes. She wandered into the living room, and watched him competently maneuver his way around her kitchen. "You're still here. Pancakes again, huh?" she teased, pulling her tousled hair into a loose ponytail with strands slipping free. He stopped in his tracks, arrested for a moment (except without the fun of handcuffs). She met the intensity of his gaze, and there was a simmer to the new intentionality between them. For her, there was a catch that was half-fear, half-anticipation, and she put the kitchen counter between them, sliding onto a bar stool.

"Esposito once told me that pancakes were an edible way of saying thank you so much for last night," he replied, deftly flipping pancakes onto plates and sliding a plate towards her.

"Shouldn't I be thanking you for taking care of me?", she asked, reaching for the fork he offers her moments later, pausing to pour a generous amount of maple syrup onto the buttered pancakes.

"Anytime you want to make me breakfast, you're welcome to. Especially if you wear one of those cute little maid skirts…" He grinned impudently at her, and then turned abruptly to get the paper on the far counter and handed it over to her. "By the way, I got the paper. And there wasn't a body outside." They shared a macabre sort of smile at the memory of the last time he made her pancakes in her own home.

She rifled through the paper the sports page before he could get it, and he settled instead for Page Six. He watched her for a moment, loving the disheveled Kate in her jammies reading the paper intently and comfortable ease between them along with a faint tension in the glances they kept stealing at each other over the top edges of their papers. Eventually, he shook Page Six open, and skimmed the articles until he made a startled yelp of exclamation and his face rearranged itself in complete disbelief. "I'm not on the New York's Most Eligible Bachelor's List anymore!"

She smirked at him, and opened her mouth to tease him before his next words forestall her. He exclaimed, "You're Bachelorette Number 10!"

She snorted. "Right, Castle. Very funny." She was convinced it was a joke. It couldn't be real. That would be ludicrous. She reached out to make a grab for the paper, which he eluded handily as he started to read out loud in his own disbelieving tone, "New to the list this year is the beautiful muse for the famous author Richard Castle. NYPD Detective Kate Beckett was featured in Cosmopolitan magazine for inspiring the kickass character Nikki Heat, with a movie scheduled to hit the big screen based on the book Heat Wave. This real-life heroine has been lauded by the Mayor for cracking some of New York's toughest murder cases..." He stopped reading to add in an aggrieved tone, "What about me?"

She was torn between horror and laughing at the priceless expression on his face. Laughing won out first, because he was really adorable at the moment, his ego still occasionally needed puncturing, and she was still living in denial about the whole thing. She stopped laughing enough to pick up her phone as it started to ring, still grinning at Castle - though her face sobers in the midst of the conversation that brings home all-too-clearly the fact that her status as Number Ten is not a joke. "Beckett. Oh, hi Dad…Yeah…I just saw it. I'm…umm… glad you think so…I'm doing great…Yes…Thank you…I'll call you later, okay?...Love you, good-bye."

His phone started ringing in the midst of her call, and he grabbed for it, answering with, "Yes Mother. I saw it…I know I'm not on the list anymore!...Well, I'm glad Alexis is at least happy…Yes, she's here…No! We didn't!...Listen, I'm just going to..umm...Call you back later. Good-bye, Mother!" He hung up, glaring at his phone.

Her phone rang again scant seconds later as she finally tore the paper from him to validate it for herself. The article is real, spelled out in all its black and white glory. The icing on the cake was that they'd somehow gotten one of the shots of her holding Ying-Ying right next to the tagline of "NYPD Heroine." She snatched her still-ringing phone and snapped, "Beckett." This time she listened for a moment and then just hung up. "That was Ryan and Esposito," she said, gritting her teeth. She closed her eyes and inhaled a calming breath before fixing Castle with a fierce this-is-your-fault look. "Between _Naked_ Heat, Ying-Ying*, and now _Bachelorette No. 10_, I'm not getting made fun of at all."

He was still recovering from the blow about not being on the list anymore, but at least tried to shoot her placating look accompanied by a faux-innocent smile. "Maybe you won't be Bachelorette No. 10 for long?"

She threw the Times at him. "I don't even want to know what you think you mean by that," she retorted acidly, embarrassment flushing her cheeks as she speared a piece of pancake with more force than the poor pancake warranted.

He was about to reply when he fixed his eyes on her mouth. He reached out to lift a tiny smudge of sticky syrup from her bottom lip before she could lick it off, and his thumb just lingered instead, tracing the line of her lower lip. Whatever he was going to say slid out of his head. The mood shifted to smoky in moments. Subtle details came into sharp focus in his awareness - like the quickened rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin tank top, the slow blink of her eyes, the way she'd gone still, and the abrupt silence that was no longer an easy or teasing one. Her dark eyes were wide, aware.

She held his gaze, something daring and challenging the way she looked at him, in the slight tilt to her head and in the way she didn't draw back from that single point of contact between the rough pad of his thumb and the softness of her lower lip.

He swallowed, unwilling to be the first to look away, and really, he just didn't feel like he _could_.

The alarm beep on his phone went off abruptly, and he swore under his breath. "I'm supposed to take Alexis to finally meet Chet." His voice was a little rougher than he expected it to be.

He could feel her lips curve up in a smile before his thumb dropped away to briefly trace the line of her jaw. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he registered the incredible softness of her skin. He loved the line of her jaw. It spoke to the strength of her and the stubbornness too, and yet…so soft.

"It okay, Castle…Rick. You should probably get going." She still wasn't used to his first name coming first to her tongue.

He shook his head, still holding her eyes. "Can I cash the raincheck in for tonight?"

She just nodded, and he made his way around the counter separating them. He slowly leaned in…kissed her cheek…kissed the bare corner of her mouth, and drew back with his hand in his pocket, already jingling car keys. "See you at seven."

She stared at the door as it shut behind him, a little disbelieving, a little disappointed, and left just wanting...a little more. She let out a long, slow exhale as her body abruptly reminded her it'd been holding its breath.

He'd been driving her nuts since the day they met, so why should that change?

On the other hand, sometimes turnabout was fair play.

A little, wicked smile lighted her face...right until her gaze fell on the paper again and she swore. She really was never going to live this all down.

* * *

*_Author's Footnote:_ In "Inevitable", Castle adopts a baby panda cub named Ying-Ying for Kate as a precinct mascot, and the panda shows up at the station for a photo op. That day is commonly known in the precinct as the Day of the Panda. Ying-Ying will definitely be appearing on their third outing, unless other inspiration gets in the way.

_Author's Note:_ I feel like I've neglected Kate's POV. I may try writing the next chapter from that one. The first segment felt a bit flat to me, so we'll see how it continues.

Thanks for all the support from my first fic. :) The reviews, fav stories, etc. have brightened my days and are really motivational. Feedback is very welcome, and it's been a lovely way to welcomed to this community. I've been posting a bunch as it's now my new favorite form of procrastination, but I do have a heavy workload this week so we'll see how the frequency goes.


	2. Chapter 2

Alexis popped her head around the walk-in closet door to survey the carnage. "Hi Dad, need help?"

There were a slew of discarded ties haphazardly on his dresser and rejected shirts were carcasses on the field of the dressing room, with none victorious in sight. Castle managed the choice of dark slacks, but stood in front of his closet with an air of disbelief. "Not only am I not an eligible Bachelor anymore, I can't believe I'm going to sound like Mother and declare I have nothing to wear."

His daughter let herself in, leaning down to pick up one of the shirts at her feet, and looked around for suitable alternatives. "Somehow I'm okay with your not adding additional therapy fodder this year by being on the silly list again. How did Kate take it?"

He met Alexis' gaze in the mirror and grinned at the memory. "Not well. She thought I was pranking her." Pointing at one of the multitude of shirts, he said, "Ooh, hand me that one. That might work."

She shook her head. "Too loud." Instead, she choose another in a shade of slate blue-gray. "This one looks good with your eyes." He held it up to himself and then approved. "Good call."

She watched him for a moment longer as he changed into it, fumbling a little with the mother-of-pearl buttons. "My dad. Nervous for a date? And this time you can't say it's for an undercover op."

"I'm not..." He started to deny it and then stopped. "It just seems different. I know Kate. We work together. I don't know how this is going to go." He pivoted halfway toward her, concern suddenly in his eyes. "You do approve though, right?"

Alexis crossed over to him to give him a hug, and he squeezed back, aware that every time he did this, she seemed a little taller and she's a far cry from the infant he held not long ago. "Yeah, Dad, I do. I really like her. She gives really great advice and is easy to talk to - different than you and Grams. Just make sure you don't do anything to hurt..."

He groaned. "You, Mother, and the entire police station have already talked to me about that. Has anyone considered that _she _might hurt _me?" _

She stepped back and considered her dad for a long moment, then reaching out for a matching tie and helping him with it."We all thought she'd _physically _hurt you a long time ago. I've considered it. I don't want you to get hurt either. Or dumped or divorced again. She's different from your other women. Like, real."

"How would you know?"

His daughter gave him a long suffering look, as she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head reprovingly. "Oh, please. You don't bring them around, but it's not like I don't hear about them. I watched you mack on Ellie Monroe on television." He winced a little at that. "Anyway, I'm not saying she wouldn't hurt you...I just don't think fear should get in the way of having someone incredible in your life, and nothing's guaranteed anyway."

"Huh...wise words," he commented, reaching out to ruffle her hair. "When'd you get so wise?"

"I learned that when I was talking to Kate."*

That made him smile. He finished getting ready, running his hand through his hair one last time and checking hims elf out. "Presentable?" he asked and Alexis nodded in confirmation, reaching out to straighten his tie. "Ok, pumpkin. I'm ready."

"Love you dad. Break a leg. But not literally, and I hope it's not by Kate." Alexis grinned at him, before adding airily, "Oh! Carter's coming over tonight to watch a movie." She waggled her fingers at him as she slipped out of his dressing room, enjoying his open-mouth, chagrined expression as she headed back to her room.

_*Author's Footnote:_ Refers to a scene from other story "Inevitable"

_

* * *

_

Bathing was a soothing ritual, and on an early winter Saturday afternoon after a grueling week in New York, it was the perfect thing to warm the bones. The light scent of cherries filled the air from the bath oil liberally flavored, and Kate Beckett immersed herself peacefully in the steaming tub, absorbing the serenity of it.

An hour later, with her digits still resembling prunes, she stood in front of the mirror in her bathrobe and put on her makeup with care – dark eyeliner and mascara to emphasize the width of her eyes, lipstick. She's done this daily since her mother first taught her how. The memory still makes her smile. She looked at herself long and hard in the mirror, not seeing the glowing beauty reflected back at her, more focused on the stray strand of hair that won't behave, fixing the smear of lipstick from the nervous nibbling on her bottom lip.

There was something so completely familiar about anticipating seeing a man who'd been following her around for the better part of nearly two years, and yet something wholly new about the territory they're entering that made things seem different – and the reason she had butterflies in her stomach. It's never been boring, but there's something more. Her thoughts spun as she continued to get ready.

She fussed around her apartment, casting a critical eye around to make sure everything's in place. The chime of the doorbell rang, and she called out "Coming", taking a moment to steady herself with a deep breath. Her internal self-critic mocked her for being nervous. _It's just Castle!_

It's never been _just _Castle_, _though. He's never been just anything.

She walked over to the door, unlocked the deadbolt, using those small actions to let him in. She doesn't have to put a smile on her face – it naturally bloomed when she thought about the last moments with him in the morning, the tease of feathery kisses, and the anticipation of his reaction to seeing her.

* * *

When he picked her up for their date, he first had to pick his jaw up off the floor when she opened her door. She wore red – a fluid red dress evocative of the Herve Leger dress she'd worn to the Heat Wave book launch. Actually, it bore an uncanny resemblance to this fantasy he has of her playing billiards…

The flowers he had in his hands were forgotten, and his necktie felt way too tight.

He's cognizant that is a side of her that she's never aimed fully at him before, as she stands in the doorway with her weight shifted, hip cocked out, hand on its curve to emphasize her waist. Glimpses of this side of her have kept him hooked for nearly two years, in addition to other elements of the Beckett onion. Tonight, she had her hair down and tousled in a way that made him want to sink his hands into them, and the light scent of cherries hit his nostrils, short circuiting his brain.

Her smile widened, a bright sparkle in her eyes and a mischievous cast to her face. The expression on his face made her spirits soar, a kind of high better than bubbling champagne. He can't take his eyes off her and she can't take her eyes from his.

"I'll just put that in water," she offered, reaching for the flowers from his numb fingers, and then opening the door wide enough to let him in. He'd watched her walk in front of him more times than he can count, but he swore this time, with those heels, it was definitely exaggerated.

_She's teasing me on purpose. _Two could play at this game - though it would help if he had blood in his brain to level the playing field. _Yeah, that's not happening anytime soon._

He followed her in, a little like an obedient cocker spaniel. In the moment her back is turned, he squeezed his eyes tight briefly and shook his head to clear it.

She was definitely messing with him when she reached up to a high overhead shelf to get a vase, the hem of her dress riding upwards to tease him with a glimpse of thigh. She was plenty tall enough to not have to stand on tiptoes in high heels. Now he couldn't turn away. Someone turned up the dial on Beckett Sex Appeal. He's still disbelieving that this time, it's actually for him (not for an undercover benefit, not on a date with someone else). It's really almost a good thing this has never been aimed at him fully before now, because he can barely think.

He said the first thing that popped into his head. He blurted, "If you say something in a Russian accent, I may pass out."

She turns towards him, arching a brow – and it's different than the dubious brow-lift, or the "WTF did you just do" brow-lift. (Okay, there's a slight "WTF" nuance to her expression.) This arch of her brow is playful, suggestive, and oh-so-sexy paired with thoughtful little bite of her lower lip, considering.

And then she did it. She did the accent. She reached back through their memories. This time she wasn't saving his ass from a Russian mobster though. This time, she looked at him directly, lifted her chin in challenge, and layered on the thick Russian accent. "You are a man aren't you?…A very handsome man."

The kitchen counter is the main reason he's standing, because all he can do is bite his knuckle, and he's dead sure the real Beckett is going to yell, "Castle!" at any moment and wake him up.

She wasn't yelling - but she was trying very, very hard not to laugh because this was too much fun. "Castle, if I'd known pulling out my Russian accent was going to shut you up this fast, I'd have used it a lot more before now." She shook her head, then turned the water to fill the vase and set it on the counter to put the flowers in. "Thank you for these. They're beautiful."

He cleared his head while she was distracted and spotted her coat hanging on the back of the sofa, and the gentleman in him kicks in to retrieve it. He gathered it up, waiting for her to approach so he can help her into it. She just grinned at him, still amused by the effect of her adopted accent, before turning to let him.

He took full advantage of her back to him as she got her arms through her sleeves, the slight bend of her head as she adjusted the belt ties, to lean in and murmur softly into her ear, "You look beautiful…Kate."

She straightened, turning her face towards him so they were inches apart. "Thanks."

They never made it to the elevator.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: So after I ended the last chapter (part cliffhanger, part exhaustion, part cop out), I really thought I'd written myself into a corner and there was no way to capture what could happen because there are so very many ways this scene could fall short - so much lies in the subtle shifting of mood and energy between them in a really fluid way. The show gives us great glimpses of that – moments when even a look on Beckett's face and Castle is just caught, and it's like 3 seconds.

This scene was still hard as heck to write but I hope it's at least reasonably believable. I'm not sure I ever want to write a scene that long again! I feel like my style is a little more like snippets than full scenes. If there are ways to improve it, I'd love to hear feedback - and reviews, of course, are always a joy for me to receive. :)

If you didn't see it, I put a new Alexis/Castle scene at the beginning of Chapter 2 because I was procrastinating on this scene. I also wrote the next chapter while I was procrastinating, so that will be up very, very soon.

* * *

They never made it as far as the elevator.

They stood there, not far from her front door, Kate with her coat on almost ready to go and Rick standing behind her after helping her don it, smoothing his hands down her sleeves. He'd told her she was beautiful - not for the sexy Russian accent, or the dress that made his jaw drop - because it was so viscerally true every time he saw her and there were so many facets to it.

And she heard that in his words - heard the meaning behind it, the real and layered admiration behind the playboy appreciation - and spoke as much from her heart in saying thanks as he did in expressing it. It was more than the words. At first it'd been fun to mess with him, and to free Kate the woman, typically so far behind professional walls. It was a side she almost buried except in small indulgences kept to herself. Something in his words shifted her beyond messing with him.

In _that_ moment, she was there in front of him in a way that felt more a blow to his heart than the punch to his gut she'd been with the sex appeal amped up. The part of him that earlier wanted to ravage her on top of her kitchen counter was overridden by the part of him that really just couldn't believe they were standing there and he got to have his hands on her (and that they were still attached to him).

She wasn't sure whether she lifted her face first, or he bent his, but somewhere in that space between, their lips met and her fingers curled at the sweetness and simmer of it.

The kiss was light at first, brushing and melding. She felt one hand rise to cup her cheek, cradling her jaw with his palm. She braced her hand on his chest, startled by the heat of his skin through the thin material of his shirt and the palpable thud of his heartbeat. They kept it endlessly light for awhile, the tentative exploration of a first time.

She's wasn't sure who deepened it, who ramped it up a notch to hungrier and more fierce…or who made the soft moan. No, actually, she was pretty sure that was her. The sound from him, echoed in a reverberation of his chest beneath her palm, was more of a growl.

He stepped her backwards, steering her blindly towards her couch, and she laughed with the breathlessness of exhilaration as she let him. They tumbled sideways onto it, the air pushed out of her lungs when he landed on top of her, an arm awkwardly trapped beneath them that she shoved at his shoulder to free. He slid beside her on the couch, turned towards her, reaching for her.

She registered his tug on her calves, the encouragement to shift, and she knew instinctively what he wanted and moved to straddle his lap. Her arms slid around his neck, playing with his hair at the nape of it, her mouth still melding with his, relishing the taste of his tongue in her mouth.

He ripped his mouth away to swear lightly about the tie of her coat, eventually getting it off her. He took advantage of the moment her hands were trapped by her coat to bind her slim wrists together, drawing her away from him in a tease – the kind of deliberate pause that tormented them both, and then releasing them both and tossing the coat on the ground. He stared at her, mussed and straddling him in the red dress, and ran a finger along the skin of her thigh exposed where the hem rode up. "Kate, you're beautiful," he whispered hoarsely again, reaching for her.

They teetered on the line between control and out-of-control, swapping it back and forth as effectively as finishing each others' sentences. He was hungry for more access to her skin, and tugged the zipper down the back of her dress, waiting for her to stop him and a little scared when she didn't. He slid his hand beneath her dress, splayed across the back, and the supple way her spine moved in response to the syncopation of their grind made his vision go.

"Castle. Rick..."

He distantly heard his name whispered by her, except that what he mainly wanted to focus on was how rough and sexy his name sounded when she was hoarsely whispering it like that. "Kate. What is it?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, dragging in a lungful of air, setting a finger on his lips to keep him from kissing her. It was a struggle to marshal her thoughts, and it really didn't help when he took her hand and raised it, nibbling on the sensitive inner skin of her wrists. "Right now there's a part of me that wants nothing more than for you to fuck me, but if this were going to just be about that…it probably would've happened a long time ago."

He actually yelped at her. "You mean we could've been doing this sooner?" Still breathing a little hard, he stared up at her.

"Maybe. Sort of. Well, no, actually. I mean the thought had crossed my mind about a casual sex, no relationship sort of thing…but - "

It was enough to make him want to beat his head against a wall, or better yet, go back to kissing her…but enough brain was still working for him to say, "Just casual sex? I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm glad you didn't take that route."

She reached up to push a strand of his hair back, feathering a fingertip along his temple as he looked as seriously up at her as she's ever seen him, his breathing still a little labored.

"I just don't want to rush it."

"Me either."

"You don't?" Her expression was a little skeptical, which was a something he'd seen a lot on her face (except now it was a lot sexier with her mouth swollen from his kisses).

"No….I know you." _You're a one and done kind of girl_. Except he knew better than to say that out loud because it would scare the shit out of her, and he wasn't sure that this whole thing wasn't scaring the hell out of him. "I am really enjoying kissing you and touching you." He emphasized both those points through demonstration, leaning in to press a kiss to her mouth and running his hand down her side in a slow slide that made her open her mouth further for his.

Reluctantly, he broke the kiss again to murmur more words. "And… right now, this isn't about getting to third base, or anything beyond just enjoying this with you. While I may be surprised to get this far, I also knew I named Nikki Heat Nikki _Heat_ for a reason." That earned him a pinch and a roll of her eyes, but also a smile for his hearing what she barely even has the words to tell him.

They gazed at each other a moment, the rhythm of her in-breath and out-breath unconsciously synched to his. She took the moment to treasure the rarity of the feeling of their melding in theory building extending to this sensual, tentative space, and he took the moment to cherish the feeling of her weight trusted to him without wanting more or less. He leaned his forehead to hers and grip her fingers more tightly.

"We good?"

"We're very, very good…or very, very bad," she responded, scintillating him again by slipping into the playful Russian accent at the end of her words, and he responded by tightening the grip he had on their clasped hands and kissing her again.

Trusting him and them, she let herself sink back into the world of touch and taste and sound and heat with him. She'd practice surrender, til the point the alarm bells started to ring, and pushing beyond that point. Some distantly working part of her brain wondered if he knew exactly what it did to her when his teeth sank in a sharp bite, with its jolt of pain and purse sensation, to the junction of neck and shoulder.

And he - knowing that she'd set a boundary and trying desperately to keep it in mind so that the whatever of what this could be wasn't something he fucked up - would take the unfamiliar role of sanity, easing her down, slowing the kisses.

Until she'd do something like nip the tender skin just below his ear and sanity would go the way of the do-dos.

They'd made out like teenagers for what seemed like hours, with unprecedentedly few words between them, at some point sliding off the couch so he could feel more of her against him on the floor.

At some point, the pacing eased, taking on a natural kind ebb, turning sweeter, sleepier. It turned into a long, silent cuddle on her floor, both of them putting up with the slight discomfort of the rug over hardwood to be fully pressed to one another while easing their breathing and allowing their heart rates to abate.

"Your heart beat is still galloping," she murmured, her head on his chest. "Needs reins."

"I'll play cowboy with you any day. With spurs." He ribbed her half out of habit, trying to get his equilibrium back because he had no idea where anything resembling it went.

She had to laugh as she drew back and looked at herself and him. "Look at us." Her lips were swollen, her dress unzipped and half hanging off her, some of the buttons are downright missing from his shirt and he wasn't exactly suited to go out in company if one looked anywhere south of the belt buckle.

"Believe me, I'm looking at you," he said raggedly.

She grinned at him and then glanced at the clock. "I think we missed dinner. There is no way that restaurant still has a table for us."

"Yeah. Did you still want to get food?" he asked, closing his eyes and hoping his vasocongestion would ease soon.

"I'm hungry but I need to get presentable to get to dinner, and you look hungry now."

He waggled his brows at her. "That's not exactly the issue I'm pained about…," he said, reaching for her again and the little boy in the back of his brain was still a little disbelieving that she let him, sinking easily back into hungry, mind numbing kiss. "Don't get presentable." He relished this Kate, unabashedly rumpled, her hair disheveled from his hands running through it. He let his gaze run freely over her, a surge of possessive satisfaction at the bite mark he'd left near the outer edge of her collarbone.

"We do need to eat though." She laughed a little self-consciously, playing a little nervously with a strand of hair at her temple before tucking it back, and suggesting, "I have leftovers in the fridge?"

He reached out and tugged the hair she'd tucked back forward, a light little teasing yank. "I'm not sure I trust anything sacrificed to the gods of the Styrofoam temple. If you have eggs and bread, I'll make us a scramble and some toast."

"Deal. I'll break out a bottle of red wine." She slowly started to get up and stretched luxuriously, startled when she found herself hauled up against him for another searing kiss as he got up too.

They headed into the kitchen, pulling the things together for their impromptu meal. She was gigglish, even without the wine, foraging through her cabinets for stored goods. They both rejected canned soup, but some cheese in the fridge proved to be a perfect omelet accompaniment once the mold was cut off.

They spread the assorted plates of food on the rug in front of the couch, and she brought pillar candles out of her bathroom and lit it. He shared the wine glass with her and leaned in between bites for kisses, until they ran the risk again of ending up where they did earlier, and the reasons they'd stopped were harder to recall.

In the end, it wasn't the schmancy dinner out he'd intended. It was something else that didn't need a name. He didn't want to go. "I should probably leave."

She wasn't sure she wanted him to go either. "I know. I'll see you on Monday?"

She walked him to her door, sliding into an easy embrace that lingered while he kissed her again. "I'll call you tomorrow." He pressed another kiss to her cheek and held her to him for another long moment.

When she went to bed, she could still taste him.

* * *

Sunday was quiet for Kate. She went for a run to clear her head, enjoying the meditative aspect in the crisp weather of early winter. It was just chilly enough that her breath hung in the air as mist. She came home to find a text message of, "Wish you were here" with a picture of the French toast he'd made for Alexis.

The flowers were delivered in the afternoon, a gorgeous bouquet of flame red blooms, while she was reading on her couch. She put them in another vase and set them nearby where she could smell them while she read.

She relished the alone time to rest and recharge, taking the time to draw a bath and think. She got in a girl call with Lanie that had her both laughing and blushing.

In the evening, he called to ask her about her day and tell her all about his – and to try and cajole her into dinner with him and Alexis. She resisted, though sorely tempted. "Another time. See you tomorrow, Castle."


	4. Chapter 4

The bull pen was filled with people hastily trying to pretend they were innocent and otherwise engaged, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the blown-up image of Bachelorette No. 10 gracing the elevator that Monday morning. It was a survival ploy that served them well when Beckett arrived, all business in leather jacket, turtleneck, and high-heels, at her very most no-nonsense. She looked pretty darn menacing when she held the poster up, with the torn tape that'd once held it up still dangling from the corners. "When I find out who did this, it will be just me and them in the gym until they are beaten to a bloody pulp," she challenged. She didn't even have to raise her voice.

Tossing it with disdainful grace into the trash, she headed over to her desk.

Esposito and Ryan looked innocuous enough, though Ryan had the "I want to say something but maybe I shouldn't" look on his face.

"What?" she snapped at Ryan.

"Good morning to you too, Beckett. There are messages for you."

"Alright. Hand them over."

"They're…umm… You might not want them." He handed her a stack - a much, much larger stack of messages than she ever normally got.

She looked suspiciously down at them, and then started skimming through them. The expression of disbelief on her face pretty much said it all, as did the forceful drop of the sheaf of papers into the nearest trashcan.

Montgomery chose that moment to call Beckett into his office with, "Hey Beckett, I have a message to pass on. Would you step in here for a moment?"

Karpowski slid her chair over while Beckett disappeared into Montgomery's office. "What were they?" she asked in a low voice.

Ryan was trying very hard not to laugh. "Date requests from half of New York. Esposito and I have been doing background checks on some of them." He looked around before retrieving part of the stack out of the wastebasket. "You should see some of these!"

Castle waltzed in at this timely juncture with bear claw and two cups of Dean and Deluca coffee in hand. "Hey guys. Where's Beckett? And what're those?"

"Hey, bro…Beckett's talking to Montgomery and these are messages that came in for Beckett." Esposito grinned, exchanging a look with Ryan.

Ryan offered him the stack with a smirk, and Castle set his goodies down on Beckett's desk before starting to read through them, the scowl on his face growing. "I'm a hero looking for a heroine", he reads aloud, mocking one of them with a nasal whine. He tosses a page into the trash and reads a few more out loud, then exclaims in disgust, "These guys can't even spell!"

Ryan shot a quick glance at Castle while Esposito sputtered. "Hey man, that's Esposito's spelling."

Castle rifled through a few more messages, and then the stack went straight back into the wastebasket again, and Karpowski slid back to her own desk instead of tarrying. Esposito beckoned Castle closer to him and Ryan with a finger. "Yo, Castle...Spill. Date?"

"Later...heads up", Ryan muttered, turning in his seat.

When Beckett emerged from the office, she headed straight for her desk, barely saying hello to Castle who traded glances with the rest of their team. Silently, they worked out between the boys that Castle drew the proverbial non-verbal short straw and got to ask the nosy question.

After a quick throat clearing, Castle asked, "So…what did Montgomery want?"

Beckett barely looked at anyone as she focused on a file, her voice coming out low and between clenched teeth. "That was about your friend Bob the Mayor. He sends his congratulations and commendations for the good publicity I continue to generate on behalf of the NYPD during an election year. Unfortunately, not for any of the work our team does for its own merits." She included them – all of them as partners and teammates – as casually in her commendation as in her ire. She turned to rake the three of them over with a look. "Speaking of which, don't we all have work to do?"

Esposito and Ryan made busy quickly and Castle started doodling circles on a notepad.

* * *

"You do realize I had nothing to do with the whole bachelorette thing, right?" Castle asked tentatively as they got in the car to drive to a crime scene that afternoon.

Beckett shot him a sidelong look as she started the ignition, and then nodded. "I realize that. Indirectly though, you've definitely made me more public than I ever really wanted to be."

He listened to her, turning half in his seat to more fully face her. "I'd be sorry - but that would mean not following the course of action that led to shadowing you and getting to be in your life, and having you in mine – and I really can't be sorry about that aspect. I am sorry about anything that even remotely makes people shallow enough to take you less seriously as the really damn good detective you are."

Sometimes it was really hard to stay annoyed at him. She softened enough to send him a small smile. "Are you sorry enough to take me to dinner at that Italian place you've been raving about? Aroma?"

He switched from sincere to boundlessly enthusiastic in a breath. "Abjectly, pathetically sorry enough to do that. And to order the really good bottle of Piccolit that you can't get anywhere else in New York to taste with their homemade olive cake. As good as you'd get in Italy itself."

"I've never been to Italy…always wanted to go."

"I'll take you! Let's go. You would love Italy."

She shook her head at his bounciness. "let's stick to places in New York first. Focus, Castle. We have a case. Would you be able to focus more if I told you it might possibly be related to a longstanding undercover ops involving a pornography ring?"

He perked up, "Really?"

She smiled mysteriously. "Maybe. But right now, it's quiet time in the car."

Silence blessedly reigned for a few moments before he started humming his unique version of action sequence porn music under his breath.

She reconsidered. Actually, it was really easy to stay annoyed at him. "Castle!"

* * *

Nearing the end of a long week, Kate was on her way to Castle's place after a brief and totally uninformative call from him asking her to please come over. He'd sounded excited and distracted. Torn between wanting a good night's sleep and a little shiver of anticipation in seeing him in beyond their more professional attitude at work, she'd headed over.

His eyes were wide, excited, and eager, and the kiss he pressed to her mouth was less passionate than perfunctory when he opened the door and ushered her into his living room. "Kate, I need you."

"Oh really?", she asked archly, in a way that made him pause and forget what he was about to say before his idea came rushing back to him and he spilled it out in an excited torrent of words.

"I've been stuck on this scene, and I've found that sometimes to get unstuck, it helps to be in the situation. But even better, you're Nikki Heat, so I thought maybe I could put you in the situation!"

She gazed at him with narrowed eyes, her arms crossing over her chest. "Just what exactly does this entail?"

"Well, I'm considering a scene in the book where Nikki's bound and gagged in a closet. Her abductor isn't ready to kill her yet, but needs to lay a false trail so that the ruggedly handsome Jameson Rook doesn't interrupt them because he and Roach are hot on her trail."

She started in heatedly with a threatening tone, "Castle, I swear if you got me over here to play some kinky game…"

"No! Really. Last time I had Alexis tie me up, but it occurred to me that it'd be so much more real if I tied _you_ up and then watched how you got out of it!"

She stepped in, toe-to-toe with him, menacingly. "Did I actually hear that right? You call me up, ask me to come over and you want me to pretend to be Nikki Heat and let you trap me in a closet to see how I'd get out?"

He looked down at her, and took a little step back. He sometimes wondered how someone smaller than him could project so much more menace. He backpedaled rapidly. "Or…I could rethink that idea…It's a bad one. Clearly. But wait! How about this? You trap me, and then you can tell me what you'd be doing to get out."

She considered it for a moment. This was starting to sound slightly more appealing to Kate. "Let me get this straight. I get to duct tape your mouth shut and do whatever this protagonist in your book would do to you, and watch you worm out of it…and occasionally tell you what I would do if I were Nikki Heat?"

He nodded eagerly, a hopeful look in his eyes. "Yes."

She backed him up another step just for the fun of it before her smile popped out. "Deal. Where's the duct tape?"

* * *

_Author's Note: _Little interludes before another outing. :) There are a few more. As always, reviews appreciated. :)


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note_: Still struggling through a wee bit of writer's block. I think I like the next chapter better, but it felt necessary to get through this one. :) Hope you're all well.

* * *

When Alexis walked into the house, she was a little taken aback to see Kate getting a beer out of their fridge, though surprise rapidly transitioned to pleasure. "Hi Kate!" She turned around looking for her father, and called out, "Hey Dad! I'm home!"

Kate winced, an embarrassed expression crossing her features. "Hi Alexis. Your dad's upstairs. He unfortunately can't respond at the moment." She paused, trying to marshal the most appropriate words for the moment. "I gagged him."

Alexis gave Kate a quizzical look, "He was that bad, huh?"

Kate laughed as she opened the bottle of beer. "Actually, not this time. He wanted to figure out what Nikki Heat would do if she were trapped somewhere. I should probably check on him. He was pretty well stuck last I saw."

Alexis groaned as she followed the detective up, and they headed up the stairs and down the hallway to her dad's room. "Last time he had me duct tape him to a chair in his office."

They found Castle on his side in the closet, with a coat valet knocked over and making groaning sounds through his gag. Kate rapidly assessed the situation. "Not sure what that objective that accomplished. Did you do that on purpose or was that an accident?" She took a sip of beer, knowing that the gag was likely making Castle very thirsty.

Castle looked at them from the unique vantage point of having his cheek pressed to the floor, and even in the discomfort, savored the two of them standing together, staring down at him in shared amusement. "Mhhmmh ararrrgh."

Alexis bent over to look at Kate's handiwork. "Huh. He hasn't loosened these at all."

"I used some very specific knots," Kate said with another little smirk at Castle, who made more sounds. "What was that?" She cupped her hand to her ear mockingly.

Alexis turned to Kate with bright, hopeful eyes. "Are you staying for dinner?"

The sounds from behind the gag redoubled, and Castle managed a vigorous nod.

Taken aback, Kate glanced between Rick and his daughter. "I um...suppose I could. Sure." She looked down at him. "I suppose that means I should let him go or he'll be there all night. Can we say apples?" She grinned, reaching down to ungag him.

After working his jaw and salivating, he said with mock grumpiness, "The antagonist in the book doesn't know the same knots you do."

In the end, they let Castle do the cooking. Alexis did her turn as sous chef while waving off Kate's attempts to help. While Castle was whipping up some stir fry, Alexis and Kate set the table. In a low undertone, Kate looked over at Alexis. "Hey, I want to check something out with you."

Alexis looked at her inquisitively, pausing in laying down another fork. "Sure."

"I guess your dad and I are...hmm...I hate words for this stuff, but I suppose 'seeing each other' works. I wanted to make sure it was okay with you. If you ever want to talk about it, you have my number."

Alexis' smile in response was bright, warm, reassuring and touched. "Wow, thank you. I appreciate that. Honestly...I'm kind of excited. I mean, no pressure or anything. I just want him to be happy and right now, he is. And I think it's neat that it's with you." She shot Kate a somewhat shy look, before laying down a spoon.

"The piece de resistance - stir fry by the great chef Richard Castle, taking the special ingredient of the night and integrating it seamlessly with authentic oriental flavoring to create a nutritional and savory meal for a discerning palate." Rick paused in his approach towards them, hands full, eyes curious. "What are you two ladies talking about?"

Kate and Alexis shared a smile. "Nothing much."

Dinner was a companionable affair, with shared laughter as they discussed Nikki Heat's latest predicament. Kate and Rick got into a waterfight over the dishes, splashing soapy water at each other. Alexis, with a wink at her father behind the detective's back, excused herself to do homework in her room.

The moment his daughter stepped upstairs, Rick reached for Kate, sliding his arms around her waist and tugging her against him for a kiss with wet hands planted on her backside. After a moment's hesitation, she slid her arms up around his neck. Unable to resist, he lifted her onto the kitchen counter and slowly started trailing soft kisses down the column of her throat.

"Rick...," she murmured. "Your daughter's upstairs. Jeez, and you worry about her and boys. What kind of example do you set with the women you bring back here?"

"I don't. I don't bring women back here. And she's settled in just where she is...but if you want to go someplace more private, there are other rooms." He lifted his brows suggestively at her and gave her a lascivious leer. "Come into my den, said the spider to the fly."

She was still absorbing his first words while she responded drolly, "Spiders eat flies. That sounds like an unattractive proposition."

"Oh trust me...you'll like it...me devouring you inch by inch." He nibbled at her collarbone, his teeth just scraping over her skin, working his way slowly up to her earlobe til he nipped it, making her hand clench in his hair. "I have to admit, being tied up by you made me think of all sorts of other things, so I'm afraid my genius mind wasn't fully focused on getting free."

She chuckled softly, bending her head to find his mouth with hers. "I thought you had other things in mind when you called me over. Figures you'd wait until Alexis is home to start this."

"Trust me, I've barely begun." He leaned in, savoring the feel of her, especially in his home. Sometimes he was still astonished by how slim she felt in his embrace, the difference between the amount of space she took up in his mind and heart and life, and her the slimness of her actual physical frame.

She laughed. "Do you have any other lines?" She let herself play with the hair at the nape of his neck, drawing a teasing finger down the back of his neck and trailing her fingernails lightly across his shoulders beneath his shirt. She was enjoying herself, and relishing the desire she could see mirrored in his eyes.

"Do I need them?" He grinned at her playfully, glad he can make her laugh...and feel other things. He ran his hands down her back, the bulk of his body firmly placed between her knees. She wrapped her legs around him, loving the wide-eyed reaction it evoked and the way he responded to the little things she did.

They let themselves indulge in each other, though she drew the line when he started trying to get her top off in his kitchen.

He let his head drop to her shoulder, taking a deep breath before whispering in her ear, "Okay, if you won't nookie with me, at least watch a movie with me?"

* * *

While Castle was out at an interview, he knew where he wanted to be - with her, working on their case. When the interview wrapped, he schmoozed the amount of time necessary, and then headed out, hailing a cab.

He stopped to get Chinese food take-out, and had the cab drop him off at the precinct where he made his way up to the bull pen to find her exactly where he thought he would – standing so still she was nearly a statue in the half-light, staring at the murder board.

"Hey Kate." He moved by her side to look at it with her.

"Castle. What're you doing here?" She uncrossed her arms, and leaned her hips back against her desk, a soft smile gracing her face.

"Just wanted to see you. And I wanted to rescue Ryan's leftovers from your ravaging." He offered the Chinese food.

"Thanks."

She was touched. He'd brought her coffee before, they'd certainly had their share of meals together while working cases, but this - this had the edge of something new.

He took his usual seat near her, content to be there while she ate, still contemplating her murder board. Well, content for about ten seconds. It wasn't long before he was story spinning right up there with her.

* * *

"Let's call it a day, guys." They've all been burning the midnight oil on this case, and the leads were running dry every corner they turned. What started as the death of a Desperate Housewives-like housewife was turning up complications like crazy, and their best suspect seemed to be a priest. Ryan was jonseying to get home to Jenny, and they're all relieved when Beckett calls it a night.

They started packing up, Castle lingering to grab Beckett's coat for her and walk her out. "Heading home?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. I'm beat." she replied, shrugging into her coat.

"I'll get a cab for us and drop you off."

Too tired to argue, she nodded.

He watched her close her eyes in the cab, watched the way the light of passing streetlamps played on her face. He reached out and linked his fingers with hers in a firm handclasp. (It occurred to him that in Heat Wave, there was a scene in which Heat wouldn't let Rook hold her hand in the cab, and the irony of art imitating life imitating art wasn't entirely lost on him.) The cab pulled up in front of her apartment almost too soon for him. As she opened the door, he tugged on her hand and leaned in to give her a soft kiss.

It lingered, deepening into a soft meld until the New York cabbie obnoxiously cleared his throat.

"Kate. Get a good night's sleep. We'll catch killers tomorrow."

She smiled tiredly and then actually reached out to ruffle his hair. "You too. See you in the morning, Castle."

And because he was Castle, he rolled down the window as she walked up the pavement to her apartment building and called, "Are you sure you don't want company?"

He heard her soft laugh. "Not tonight, Castle."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note_: Still slogging through some writer's block. The reviews have really helped (not on the writer's block) but to keep writing and wrestling with the scenes, rather than let them lie fallow. :) The Ying-Ying scene was Kavi's inspiration, much appreciated, as well as the psychological probing about what's going on with them. It's very odd to try writing and realizing that one's characters are saying different things than one had anticipated. I was sort of surprised to find myself writing Beckett holding back - and enough of a psychologist to realize that there are a host of reasons why she would and then get curious about what it would take to unravel things. (It may also be my own subconscious, but I won't inflict _that_ on you beyond the fact that I still can't figure out exactly what it was about Castle, of all the media I've loved, that inspired me to fanfic in the first place.) I think this week I'm plain tuckered out a little, so tonight, it's an early bedtime. Typos, as usual, are all mine - especially tense-related. I started the darned first segment in present-tense again and just hope I caught most of the verbs. "Awareness precedes choice" was the favorite saying of one of the most brilliant professors I ever had, who passed away a couple of years ago. It's one of the little ways she lives on in my memory.

* * *

Ying-ying had grown considerably in the manner of her species (Giant Panda), and was currently gamboling around her pen. They watched the bear trundle towards a corner in the muted afternoon winter sunlight, acquiring and then consuming her way through a sheaf of bamboo tips.

"I think she looks like you", Kate said, leaning over to rest her weight on the guard rail as they observed the panda bear.

Rick eyed the growing bear before commenting, "Yeah, but she definitely got her vicious streak from you. Look at the way she's tearing through her food."

She sent him a sidelong glance beneath her lashes and then straightened. "Holding Ying-Ying was a pretty incredible experience when she was more of a baby." She smiled at the memory. "I couldn't even hold on to my homicidal impulse to kill you – too overwhelmed by cute"

He laughed at that. "I was counting on that. I had the zoo staff send me all the pictures. You have the best facial expressions in them. My favorite one, beside the one where you clearly want to hate me but can't, is one of you just holding Ying-Ying and smiling." Slightly out of left field, he asked, "Do you want your own baby bears?"

She shot him a look. "Baby bears? Isn't one enough? She's eating like twenty pounds of bamboo shoots a day. Those are hard to forage for in New York!"

He jabbed at her a little with his elbow, and then lowered his voiced dramatically. "Baby humans, then, if you insist on differentiating. Don't let Ying-Ying hear you though. You'll hurt her feelings."

She took her time replying, gazing across the pen at the panda for awhile, and her words were soft when they emerged. "I hadn't really thought about it a lot. When I was younger, I thought I would someday, but with this line of work, I sometimes think it might not be fair."

He turned fully to face her, leaning against the guard rail. He reached out to touch her hair, bringing his hand to cradle her jaw, lifting her face to meet his. He matched her voice in tone and tenor, his own voice softening, less teasing. "I remember you with the kidnapping case we took with your ex – the FBI man. How you were when we found that little girl. And hey, if Jordan Shaw could do it, I think you could. I think you'd be an incredible mother." His words could have been cliche, trite, but the look in his eyes spoke his belief in the truth of them with an intensity that made her look away.

She returned her gaze to their panda instead, lightening her voice back to playful. "I have to say, when I first met you, I totally didn't see you as the devoted dad you are."

He followed her lead, "It's a lot of trial and error. Alexis has a lot of patience with me."

"And you love it." She couldn't help the grin on her face.

"Yeah, I do. I love being a dad. Raising her was one of the best things I've done - even more than the bestsellers. When she was little, I loved watching her sleep. Still do - but now she thiks it's creepy. Kind of like you do when I watch you write reports." They shared a grin at that, and he sidled closer to her and put his arm around her waist. "She loved the zoo…and the park…and the Met. Really she loved everything, which was a lot of the joy of being with her."

Kate shakes her head, mock disbelievingly. "It's still weird seeing this side of you."

"You can see a lot more of me if you like." His words were accompanied by a slide of his hand down to a quick ass pinch before she could smack him for it.

"And there's the twelve year old _again_."

They both laughed, and he pulled reluctantly away, catching at her hand and drawing it to rest on his arm. "Wave good-bye to your panda baby and let's go see the other animals."

She curled her fingers in the crook of his elbow, her free hand coming up to twirl a loose strand of hair as they continued to walk along the paths through the zoo.

* * *

The team was in the midst of interviewing neighbors at a crime scene. The body found in Apartment 7D had sadly been there awhile, the smell compelling a neighbor to call the building foreman. The sweet little lady in 7B was just precious. "My husband died years ago," she said mournfully, stroking her (somewhat cliché but apropos) hairy cat. She adjusted her glasses and peered more closely at Kate. "Are you that detective lady that's bachelorette number ten? I think I saw your picture in the paper."

Kate suppressed a grimace and started to try to change the conversation with, "Mrs. Adams, did you hear anything - ".

Mrs. Adams cut her off. "John, my upstairs bridge partner, says that you're with the writer guy though. Is that true? Are you with him?" She stabbed a bony finger in Castle's direction.

Castle expected the yes, to the point where his "Not yet" was already halfway out his mouth before he realized Kate hadn't denied it. Instead, she was biting her lower lip a little. "Yes. Now about last week, did you hear anything Wednesday night that sounded unusual?"

Castle almost couldn't contain himself. He wanted to run around in circles and proclaim to the world that she's _his_. His face lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve, and he cleared his throat, holding a hand up. "Excuse me. I'll…umm…be right back. Just one sec."

He left Mrs. Adams' apartment hastily, closing the door behind him.

Scant seconds later, Beckett and Mrs. Adams (even hard-of-hearing Mrs. Adams) heard a muffled "YES!" coming from the hallway and the sound of thudding feet. Beckett closed her eyes briefly and gritted her teeth, before turning back to Mrs. Adams. "Sorry about that. He's had too much sugar this morning and needs a choke chain. You were telling me …?"

Ryan and Esposito walked out of 7F and stood at the end of the hallway, staring at Castle doing his best impression of the Snoopy dance down the hall ecstatically, ending it with a backwards moonwalk in their direction (his back to them), ending in front of Mrs. Adams' door and re-entering it with the thin veneer of sobriety.

"What was that about?", Ryan asked, brows drawn together in puzzlement.

Esposito shrugged. "No idea."

* * *

Castle was crying, tears streaming out of his eyes. The fumes from the onions filled the kitchen. In his mind, they were particularly vindictive onions, taking their revenge for the fact that he was going to thoroughly enjoy grilling them and then eating them on his fajitas. He continued to chop while his mind drifted a little – to Beckett, where it normally went to, peeling layers of the Beckett onion. There were a lot of other things he would have preferred to be peeling off of her, but at the moment, she was sipping wine and reading in his living room, so that wasn't going to happen now…maybe later.

He thought of the differences between them - sort of like comparing apples and onions. He had a growing awareness that even though they were dating (and the fact that she'd admitted it in public still made him air pump his fist in jubilation when he thought no one was looking), she'd still only l let him in so far. It wasn't about the sex – or lack thereof. In a sense, this was all one long foreplay and he was enjoying the scintillation, the anticipation, and the sense of so much ahead of them.

And so he was back at the layers. He'd been exiled once for pushing things too far, and definitely didn't want to risk that again. Or did he, really? The question for him was, where to go from there? Awareness precedes choice. And there were some things worth risking everything for.

)()()()(

The book was open, but the mind was wandering. Beckett was wondering what was still holding her back. Part of it was savoring the feeling of being…well…"courted" for lack of a better word, beyond dated. Beyond the coffee and bear claw offerings, there was the late night food brought to the precinct when she was working late, the occasional flowers he impulsively filled her apartment with, the holding hands in taxi cabs, and there was definitely the steamy making out that all too often ended with both of them aching for more. Part of it was the endless "what if", the scenarios she ran in her mind, circling over and over again. What if he were her one and done? What if he weren't?

She watched him, wiping tears from his eyes, skillfully handling onions (and she had to admit, she loved the way he skillfully handed her). What if she really went all in? That possibility made her breath catch. Could "the extraordinary KB" do anything less, if she lived up to the look in his eyes sometimes when he looked at her? Was _that_ what she was afraid of?

She took another sip of wine, rolling the red liquid on her tongue. She supposed the question was where to go from there. Dinner first, and then? Awareness precedes choice. And after all the what-ifs, there was the what-is. And in this case, the what-is was pretty damn good. And maybe risking everything for.


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Note:_ Sadly, I haven't gotten the time to write that I've wanted! (Slammed by work, and then in dire need of a mini-vacation, which I took.) And I've been struggling with writer's block, but am going back to Kavi's advice of "just start writing" - so hence, this! Thank you for the reviews and the requests. When I've been tempted to abandon, it's been those and the PMs that have kept me going.

* * *

They had a sort of silent agreement. They kept the boundaries professional at work (though he liked to push those boundaries by whispering to her that he loved knowing she wore sexy bras). They didn't do things that would expose them to the press (restaurants were low key, and Castle had to restrain himself on the public displays of affection). They weren't overt about the relationship at the precinct (though the betting pool reflected the fact that somehow everyone knew). So it was a surprise to Beckett (and yet, probably shouldn't have been) that he chose a moment in the precinct break room to ask.

He watched her slowly sipping coffee, his eyes drawn to her mouth before he jerked his gaze away and tried to remember what he'd wanted to say. What abruptly came out of his mouth was, "Come away with me for a weekend somewhere. Three days." The words sort of hung there for a moment, and he watched her eyes fly to meet his before he added with a quick rush of self-preservation, "No funny business?"

There was something a little painful in that moment, a heightened awareness that cropped up – the kind where a new situation treads the ground of old wounds like an echo or like pressing on bruising that has faded but still hurts.

In the silence, he hastily added, "Or maybe I promise that there _will _be funny business? But it's not just an attempt to see you in a bikini?" The flutter of panic rose in his chest and he stood there as she abruptly started to walk away, his mind racing, trying to figure out the next move.

Beckett walked distractedly back to her chair, heartbeat pounding in her ears. It was a little too close to the ironically memorable Memorial Day Hamptons summer invitation. And here she was again, starting to overthink it…again. She turned abruptly, nearly bumping into him, which she really should have expected since he'd been at her heels for two years. She tipped her head slightly towards the still-empty break room, and he followed her there with worried eyes.

Taking a deep breath as soon as they were inside, she let her words tumble out in an uncharacteristic rush, "Castle, can we have an instant replay moment? One where you ask me and I just say 'Yes'?"

He looked down at her for a long moment, his eyes going wide as he started to parse what she meant. "Wait, you will?" The wide grin that suffused his face, chasing the boggled worry away, was boyish and filled with enthusiasm – and contagious. She found herself smiling back in return…and then hastily backed off before they both forgot the unspoken professional boundaries in place, turning on her heel and walking back towards her desk. And damned if he didn't think he noticed a little bit more of a swing to her hips as he stood there, still a little stunned, before remembering to follow.

He was practically bouncing off the walls until she turned to him with a stern and very pointed, "Don't you have writing to do somewhere?" Curbing his enthusiasm a notch, he attempted to look innocuous and low-maintenance, which she just rolled her eyes at – with a tiny smile.

He was so excited that she decided he needed (and maybe she did too) a quick walk around the block to clear his head. As soon as they were out the door, breath steaming in the chill air of a New York winter, she set off at a brisk pace...though she was also the one that started asking questions.

"What about Alexis?"

"I'll ask my mother to stay. She'll be delighted."

"Where are we going?"

He was in full plotting mode, and was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Let me surprise you. I guarantee it'll be someplace bikini appropriate."

She shook her head. "You'll do anything to see me in a bikini."

This time he vehemently agreed.

* * *

Esposito and Ryan weren't blind to the little byplay, though they took advantage of Beckett's absence to hop on the internet again to troll for the fodder of the latest round of precinct bets. Casting for the first Nikki Heat movie was going on, and the 12th was having fun with it. Roach, Lauren, and Montrose wanna-bes were floated around in the precinct betting pools like mad, and of course for Nikki Heat.

"Jenny thinks Neil Patrick Harris should play Raley in the movie," Ryan commented, trying to feel out Esposito's take on that.

"Uh-huh…" Esposito gave him _a look_ and went back to the screen. "Hey Karpowski! You called one! New contender for Detective Heat is Jessica Biel!" He grinned. "Lanie's gonna get a run for her money – she's thinking Heat should be Angelina Jolie."

They watched Beckett and Castle return to the precinct, Beckett peeling away to Montgomery's office and Castle walking towards them, rubbing his hands together to warm them with a gleeful, kid-in-a-candy-store edge to his grin.

Naturally Ryan and Esposito turned to Castle, whose poker face fell far, far short of being able to contain his delight. "Bro, spill." Esposito tipped a finger in the direction of Montgomery's office.

Castle leaned in, and whispered excitedly, "Beckett's asking for a couple days off!"

"What? Where? The only thing she's taken vacation time on was to look for apartments!"

"Nuh-uh. Not telling you, it's a secret." Castle put his finger to his lips.

Ryan and Esposito exchanged an incredulous look before Ryan said, "Seriously? You're trying that on us? You do realize we're detectives, right?"

Esposito chimed in with, "What do you want to bet?"

"Not worth my life! Besides…we don't want to spook the wabbit…must go very, very quietly." Castle put his finger to his lips. "Shhh…"

Beckett emerged from Montgomery's office, and the slight smile on her face rapidly rearranged into the glare of death as she caught sight of the three of them. They hastily scattered their attention to look busy.

* * *

Martha arrived at the loft in a swirl of bold leopard print silk and the scent of perfume, nearly bowled over by a hug and squeal from Alexis. Castle was still upstairs somewhere packing the perfect wardrobe and sufficient hair product when Kate arrived shortly thereafter with her bag in hand. The three women stood at the bottom of the stairs, Martha and Alexis giving twin beatific smiles to the slightly nervous detective.

Kate turned to Martha with a concerned frown between her brows. "Martha, are you sure you don't mind?"

"Why, of course not, dear. Time to spend with Alexis – and have a few friends over for cocktails. It'll be fine. Just you run along and have a marvelous time, and have a cocktail on the beach for me." She winked broadly.

Kate still nibbled at her lower lip, transmitting a small signal of anxiety. Alexis let go of her grandmother and stepped over to give Kate a hug. "Have a great time, and please keep dad from trying to send endangered species as pets for me and remind him to wear sunblock."

Martha posed by the bottom step. "You'll do fine, kiddo. If you're worried about my son, I think the fact that he's shown uncharacteristic restraint and hasn't tried to buy you a ring by now says a lot about how he feels about you." She gesticulated grandly, with characteristic airy confidence.

"Wait. What? How do you figure that?" Kate asked Martha in some confusion, looking at her dubiously and with no small twinge of alarm given that they're talking about rings, even if in a roundabout manner.

Martha shrugged eloquently. "Richard isn't trying to marry you. Trying to do something 'real', grasp for something stable, with a large shiny ring in hand is an age-old attempt at security. Trust me, I should know. Trying to do something by building it first, not rushing it…that's harder." She paused contemplatively, then added with a brilliant smile, "Diamonds are still nice though!"

This time, it's Alexis who rolled her eyes. "Don't scare her, Grams." She smiled anew at Kate and bounced a little on her toes, reminiscent of her father. "Don't worry about things!"

"Worry about what?" Castle descends the stairs, lugging his suitcase with him, and sending his mother a suspicious look.

Martha blithely ignored the question, and informed him in a sprightly manner, "By the way, Richard dear, I'm having a few friends over tonight. I hope you don't mind!"

Rick winced slightly. "As long as Alexis is chaperoning."

Alexis added, all too innocently, "Carter's coming over too."

At the expression on Rick's face, Kate couldn't help a laugh, and tugged on his arm to turn him towards the door. She sent Alexis a conspiratorial grin over her shoulder."Have fun!"

Even his concern for the state of his home couldn't dampen the excitement, though he sent Alexis a last pleading look through the rapidly closing door that Martha shut with firm finality. He let Kate take two steps down the hall before he snared her arm. "Wait..."

"Did you forget anything?" she asked, a concerned note in her voice.

"Yes. Just this." He leaned in and down, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against his body. He brushed his mouth over hers, his tongue darting into her mouth, taking advantage of the surprised protest she was about to utter, silencing them both for a long moment. She softened, her body more pliable against him, moulding against him. Eventually, long moments later, he murmured against her mouth, "Thank you for coming with me, for trusting me. I hope you'll have a good time." He smiled down at her, caught by the way her smile in return crinkled the corner of her eyes, lightening immeasurably her normally serious expression. "Come on. Your bikini awaits my undoing." Laughing, she rolled her eyes, picked up her weekender and strolled hand-in-hand with him towards the lift.

* * *

_Author's Note: _Does this need an exotic locale change to help with my writer's block? I think this does! And what happens to be a relatively short flight away from New York? Why, the Carribean! And who is outrageously wealthy enough to get a temporary stay on a tiny private island? A certain famous mystery novelist!


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: _The process of dealing with little fears (not life or death ones) is astonishing sometimes. In this case, while some of the delay in posting was due to being slammed at work, another part of it was just that I've never posted M-rated scenes before really, and it turns out that I have a shy streak and an active sardonic inner voice that gets in the way occasionally of writing, particularly after years of reading various romance novels. ("Seriously? You're going to use 'ravished'?") I hope it was worth the wait, with more to come now that I've gotten over that particular hump (no pun intended).

Thanks go to ignacio2012 and Kavi Leghanna for the consistent encouragement and words of wisdom!

* * *

The Bahamas were a quick 4-hour hop from New York by jet the sun was just setting over the water when they arrived, turning the horizon to a blaze of pale blues, vivid golds, and soft pink reflected in the calm of the Caribbean waters.

She'd dozed off during their flight, and he gently nuzzled her awake to encourage her to take in the wonder of the view from the plane as it descended. A private sedan was waiting on the tarmac to take them to a private dock where a speedboat took them on a half-hour ride to a private cay, and a golf cart picked them up at the dock to take them to a solitary beachfront house. It was a little ridiculous in a Rick Castle completely-over-the-top kind of way.

Part of her wanted to roll her eyes at the ridiculousness of it, but that almost be too predictable, so other than casting Rick a sardonic look, she returned her gaze to the unfolding views. Rick just grinned at her, content to revel in the myriad expressions that crossed her face, and laced her fingers with his during the trips in the sundry vehicles it took to arrive at their destination.

She was quiet much of the trip, weary from the long week at work, and though the anticipation kept her awake, she was only marginally better at keeping a lid on her nerves than he. He was slightly hyper, the edge of nerves adding fuel to his motormouth. "Did you know a moment used to be an actual measure of time? It was used during the Medieval era, specifying one and a half minutes." She discovered that kissing him was a far more effective way to shut him up for longer than "a moment" than anything she'd previously had in her arsenal, gunpoint included, before they started whatever it was that they were doing – that neither quite had a name for.

When they arrived at their lodging, she just stared – again, too ridiculous and too beautiful for words. A private "cottage" lay nested at the treeline of an expansive private beach that curved around its own inlet, completely isolated as far as they eye could see from any other habitation. The beach-side bungalow was actually cozy, the luxury screaming in evidence in the quality of furnishings and decor and the utter privacy of the private cay. Soft fabrics in cream set off mahogany and teak furniture, expansive glass and wide windows letting in Caribbean breezes and glorious views from every angle. Beyond the veranda, white sand and the sound of the surf beckoned, the first stars of night starting to scatter across the sky. He'd arranged for flowers for her upon their arrival– vivid tropical blooms in every room, their fragrance adding to the serenity of the surrounds.

"How in the world did you find this place?" she asked, after she picked her jaw back up.

"Belongs to a buddy of mine. Like it?" There was an uncharacteristic note in his voice. Shyness?

She just turned to smile at him, a beautiful, rare, carefree smile, her prowl through their temporary living quarters quiet as she took everything in. He loved just watching her, as he so often did, and experiencing the luxury through her eyes as though for the first time. After the chill of New York, the contrast was starling, vivid and constant reminder of being far from home.

He carried their bags to the bedroom, hesitating in front of the master suite door, and dropped his own bags in front of an adjacent room – not above hoping he wouldn't be relegated there.

When he returned to the living area, she was standing barefoot on the deck, looking out at the dark sea with its surface silvered in the reflection of moonlight. Homicides, cases, cop jokes, blood, deception - the uglier side of humanity - seemed almost to belong to a different life in a place like this. While that made her wary, because _that_ was the reality of her life that she wanted and needed to stay anchored in, _this_ was a gift. She shot him a sidelong look as he approached her, realizing that's what he did for her – he made space in a million little ways, in her own territory amidst the skyscrapers of New York, but also by giving her this.

He just loved watching her gawk at the surrounds. He slid his arms around her from behind, dropping a kiss at the nape of her neck. The temptation to say something quick, easy, and funny rose and he quashed it.

When he hesitated, she understood it and the vulnerability and the question in his eyes, and moved to find the words to express what she was thinking about in the moment. He was a little surprised when she did speak. She didn't want to risk keeping too much to herself this time, a hard lesson she learned at the beginning of the prior summer when he left for the Hamptons with Gina. "I came here to be with you. It's hard to not be distracted in New York – the cases, our work." He thrilled a little at the automatic inclusion of himself in "our work", but stayed silent. She had a look on her face, akin to studying a murder board, an unfocused look to her eyes that spoke of wheels turning. "And the gossip which drives me crazy…and the reporters, that I hate." She grimaced. "Bachelorette Number Ten…jeez…who has time for that crap?"

He protested that before catching the teasing glint in her eye as she baited him before continuing, her words soft enough that he had to lean in to catch them, though crisp in their clarity of thoughtfulness. "I somehow always thought you and I were complicated. And you're not without your complications – though just to be clear, I don't consider Alexis one of them. But you bring a lot to my life, you pull my pigtails and gift me panda bears, and my life is undeniably not the same since I stumbled across your books all those years ago, when I knew you as just a terrific writer, before I knew you as an obnoxious, egotistical, pain-in-the-ass shadow, and before I know you as who you are right now, standing with me in this nameless place on this nameless beach somewhere in the Caribbean. "

She fell silent, and then tugged his hand to descend the steps from the veranda and directly onto white sand beach. He followed her, tightening his fingers around hers, and the curious writer in him – no, the curious man in him prompted, "What're you thinking?"

"What do I offer you?" The question was simple, thoughtful, matter-of-fact, even. It wasn't a question born of insecurity, or fishing, or really any kind of request for information. It was the beginning of an exploration. "Not your muse, or your disciplinarian. Definitely not a notch on your bedpost." The last was said with a lightness, no charge to the tease that would otherwise make him defensive.

"How about just KB?" His arms tightened around her waist, asking for no less than everything. And that would do for the moment, enough to let it go for a bit. She turned her head to look at him, lips parted, the invitation in her eyes rather than in words – and an invitation he was more than willing to accept. He lowered his head, melding his lips with hers gently for the first few moments, and then more fiercely as need between them rose. They kissed 'til their breathing was ragged, and her toes were curling into the soft sand. Swallowing hard, he managed to get some air – enough so he could focus on unbuttoning her blouse. She backed off slowly, leaving him nearly ready to tear his hair out until he focused on what she was doing – taking off her clothes slowly.

With a blithe, seductive smile, she tossed the shirt off, her bra following, left carelessly on the sand and joined moments later by the rest of her clothes. The moonlight leeched the world of its color, turning the panorama to black and white and playing silver on her skin and deeply shadowing fascinating curves, like the valley between her breasts. He couldn't take his eyes off her, mesmerized. There was, after all, a little more Nikki Heat in her than she would ever publicly admit – but here on this isolated beach, that part got to play and get more depth and faceting than "Heat Wave" could attempt to surface.

Nikki Heat had nothing on a gloriously naked Kate Beckett, gilded in moonlight on a Caribbean beach, especially with the look she was giving him. Two could play at this game, except he suddenly didn't give a shit about being seductive in the manner of how he was taking his shirt off or shucking the rest of his clothes. The warmth of the Caribbean breeze felt great on his skin, though what he really wanted was _her_ skin on his. She laughed when he tripped trying to get out of his jeans, and the smirk on her face was at least familiar.

He rose, ran after her kicking up sand, and tackled. She could've evaded him (or decked him), but she let him bear her weight down to the soft sand, and when his mouth found hers, there was little finesse to it in favor of sheer, raw passion.

She was almost startled to realize the uninhibited moans were hers. His fingers slid between her thighs, and he glided a fingertip over her enough to slick his fingers for bare seconds before sliding two deep inside of her with a hard thrust of his hand. The arc of her back and the cry from her mouth was worth it, muffled by his tongue invading her in another way. She lifted her hips to his in an ancient signal for more, her nails raking his back as she just held onto him.

She lay on her back, her knees up, the position in some ways ultimately vulnerable and trusting in this outdoor setting. He set a rhythm with his fingers that was sometimes almost soothing, and then driving her to madness, his other arm wrapped around her while his mouth ravaged over hers. Attuned to her, watching her, he felt her tension start to build and played that, and played her, humbled that she trusted him enough to let him. Her grip across his shoulders tightened, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulder blades, the pain from her nails transmuted into a heightened awareness of the moment. He played with her mouth as much as his fingers played her, sucking on her lower lip, his tongue giving and melding and dancing with her tongue.

Other very specific parts of him wanted exactly what his fingers were luxuriating in, filling her. He let his fingers explore inside her while he held her, finding the spots within her body that made her cry out deep into his mouth. Against her lips he whispered to her - her name, nonsense things, encouragement, endearments, and finally - command - in a deep, mature, sincere tone.

It was a voice she'd rarely ever heard from him. If she'd been able to think, she might remember its echo when he said "I'm sorry" for prying into her mother's case, or when he'd offered to stop following her after the serial killer...or when he'd said "the heart wants what the heart wants". The thinking part wasn't responding, but the visceral, instinctive, intuitive bodily part of her could and did respond.

He lifted his head to watch her orgasm, watched her close her eyes, heard her hoarse scream so deeply that it tore a mirroring groan from him. She swore when she came. It delighted him and humbled him to know that, to be gifted with that intimate layer of the Beckett onion. Slowly, with a deliberate tortuousness, he slid his fingers out of her, thrusting them one last time into oversensitive flesh for the sheer delight of watching her body spasm with another soft cry in response, and cradled her body closer to him.

Eons later (or moments, technically), Kate opened her eyes slowly and discovered there were really were stars overhead. It wasn't just her imagination. She really was naked on a moonlit beach, in the arms of a man who looked at her like she was a goddess…or maybe a succubus. With Rick, it was a little hard to tell. His breathing stayed jagged, and she was keenly aware of the heat of his erection against her thigh, and how much discipline and restraint (proving that he actually did have some) he was showing in just holding her. Thirsty for more, she lifted her mouth to his, and raised her knee in an open invitation.

His heart was pounding in his ears, somehow indistinguishable from the surf yards away. "I should warn you," he whispered fiercely with a bite to her earlobe. She drew slightly away, that familiar furrow beginning to appear between her brows in question. "There's a pretty good probability of getting sand in really uncomfortable places." Her laugh was husky, a little hoarse, and he said added, softly, "There's umm…a cabana back by the trees…"

She tilted her head back, sand in her hair, glancing back at the treeline. "You're kidding…" There actually was, at the edge of the beach, a luxurious, double-wide chaise set beneath a four-poster frame supporting billowing flows of fabric. The look she gave it was incredulous. It was so beautifully over-the-top ridiculous. "Is there an espresso machine in there too?"

He laughed with the memory of her face when he'd shown up with one at the precinct, and got up, brushing sand off himself. She didn't laugh, though she kinda wanted to, at the rampant evidence of how much he wanted her clearly outlined by his moonlit shadow on the beach. (She knew better than to laugh at naked men. She learned that lesson in college. They tended to take it the wrong way.) Punch-drunk on arousal and surreality, they made their way across the sand hand-in-hand, kissing urgently 'til he lifted her off her feet and carried her the last few yards.

He managed to grunt "shower", indicating a nearby platform. Proving that some part of her brain still worked, she yanked the handle on the outdoor shower, water warmed by the earlier sun sluicing over them and turning them both slick as they stood directly beneath the spray. Her arms tightened around his neck, and he lowered her slowly down the length of his body.

* * *

_Author's Note: _I hope you'll be pleased that I can assure you that there won't be so long of a wait between chapters, as I actually wrote most of the next scene! :) Reviews welcome - they really have kept me working on this story through the times I was mildly tempted to not write more. The setting is a little ridiculous, but I think that's part of the fun of Castle - that he can get the level of ridiculous that comes with an unlimited budget. Researching private homes in the Bahamas was actually kind of fun! :)


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's Note:_ This time I blame the long delay on a head cold. Believe me, you don't want the writing I did toked up on cold meds. My internal dialogue was already enough to live with. I suspect this story is winding its way to a close. BTW, I MISS the TV show. I'm not ready for it to be September yet, but I AM ready for Castle to start-up again. I'll probably proof and edit in the next few days, but I promised a very cool person I'd post and therefore, here it is. :)

* * *

Standing beneath the spray of the outdoor shower, Rick held Kate against him. He took his time making sure there wasn't sand left in any uncomfortable places with his hands skimming over the curves and valleys of her body – very thoroughly - before turning off the water and backing her onto the lounge. She returned in kind, distracting him and teasing him with her mouth to his, feeling the tension in his muscles as he struggled with self-control and she went counter to most of their interactions of the last two years by encouraging him to completely lose it.

Worshipful was the only way she had to describe, if she'd had words, the way his mouth lingered on her. Part of her expected this to be rushed and needy, and the edge of it was there – the need was there, tightly restrained, visible in the tautness of his back muscles as he leaned over her. Consciously giving in turn, she let her fingertips glide down his back, arcing her body up to meet his and crying aloud when his lips at last, at last found a nipple to play with.

The infamous page 105 sex scene had nothing on this one. His mouth ravaged freely over her until she grew impatient with his teasing and shifted them both until she was above him, hair framing her face, knees to either side of his hips. Breathing ragged, she teased him as she rocked her hips sinuously above him, an infuriatingly slow rub of skin intimately over intimate skin. In contrast to the cooler tropical air, he could feel the heat of her above him, and she could feel the heat of his arms wrapped around her.

He lowered his hands to her ass, the first glide of his hands a rough caress, the second a grip that steadied and encouraged her. She wanted to close her eyes, and didn't because his were holding hers with a peculiar mixture of challenge and tenderness as she slowly lowered herself onto him. Her lids fluttered as she felt him inexorably filling her. (The "white whale" was aptly named.)

He loved sex, he absolutely loved sex and always had, and sex with Kate was blowing his mind – the heat, the strength of her, the wiry delicacy of her frame, the way she trusted him with her body even as she claimed him, let him claim her.

He withdrew most of the way, gritting his teeth against the need to fill her again, challenging her instead, daring her to set the pace. And Kate, with the competitive streak that had once set them racing to solve a homicide before Ryan and Esposito, let that streak have full rein as she let loose and fiercely, passionately, relentlessly rode him until neither of them could see straight and the little death of orgasm ripped through both of hm.

The release left her with the sense of stars spinning, of exhaustion, of completion. The thought popped into her head that a luxury chaise bed beneath a starry sky on a warm Caribbean night on a private beach with a nearly full moon and the Milky Way overhead sure beat the time she'd done it in the back of a car.

But the real difference was the man. He challenged her, he cajoled her, and he accepted her.

She finally fell asleep, Caribbean breezes cooling the sweat off her bare skin.

He was tempted to stay there, sleep under the stars. He wondered if she'd think it was less creepy watching her sleep than watching her doing paperwork. Almost on cue, one eye cracked open, though her voice was a lot more satiated-sounding than irritated sounding when she said, "Castle, it's still creepy." There was an amused smile curving her lips as her eye drifted shut again.

As much as watching her sleep in the moonlight stirred the writer in him, he troubled himself to climb out of the cabana and leaned down to scoop her up.

"Hey!"

"Come on, honey. It's nice now, but we'll be cold before dawn." Still somewhat boneless (temporarily) himself, he set her down to walk hand-in-hand back to the house.

* * *

He woke near dawn disoriented, a thin sheen of sweat covering him. They'd untangled during the night, separated by scant inches and covered only by a thin sheet. His breathing was still a little rough. He stared at the ceiling. Some of the details of the dream were already sliding away in the wake of waking…but enough of the dream remained to make him shiver. In the dreamscape, they were back in New York and the scenes flitted disjointedly in range from her telling him they were through to him running towards her apartment, and he could feel the heat searing his face from the blast that shattered all her windows, and _he_ was shattered from the sense of her being gone. Dreamtime Rick's sense of devastation had his nerves afire.

This time, she was watching him, woken by the inarticulate sound he'd made. She shifted to prop her head on a bent elbow, drawing his gaze to her, and reached out to touch him. She knew nightmares.

He focused on her intently, so close to him, alive and real…and mind bogglingly actually _with him_ and undeniably intimate. He reached for her hand, his grip tight, his fingers still sweaty. It wasn't yet dawn, though the sun's light was just starting to stain the eastern sky. His hands were a little rough, moving from the first grip to a tighter haul of her against him.

"Kate, I care for you. You may not be ready to hear it, but I do." His words were an unknowing echo of someone else's – and she could hear the truth in its resonance as much as she had with Agent Jordan Shaw's.

He could see feel the tensing of her muscles, knew her well enough there were still layers to the Beckett onion. And that's when he challenged her."Part of you wants to stop, retreat, hold back." His voice was low, rough with arousal and edgy with challenge. He dragged air into his lungs, and dropped his forehead to hers. "However far back you pull, this time, I'll be here."

She could speak multiple languages, and he was re-teaching her the language of the heart – enough to translate his feelings, to hear what he actually meant. And she gave in one of the ways she knew how by bringing her mouth to his and showing him demonstrably one tangible way of letting him in.

* * *

While she took advantage of not having a schedule to sleep in, he went out to sit on the veranda outside the bedroom where he could work on his tan, write notes and scenes and ideas for his next book.

When he heard her starting to stir, he got up to bring her a cup of coffee and went back to finishing a thought he didn't want to lose – and hoped he never would even without the notebook. Kate wandered over barefoot, tousled and sexy in a robe, and leaned over his shoulder to take a look. He casually turned the page, conveniently concealing his writing.

Her eyes narrowed at him in suspicion. "Castle, if anything we've done here ends up in one of your books, you will no longer be a writer because every single little bone and boner that can string words together will be pulverized into shrapnel."

He whipped out the book again. "Jeez I need to write that down!" She lightly smacked him upside the head and he looked up at her with wide blue eyes, a studied practice in innocence. "No! Jeez, Beckett…Kate. I promise you…I wasn't thinking about the next novel."

He tucked the moleskin in a pocket and tugged her into his lap. "It was something I was thinking about in relation to you. I'll tell you later… it needs time." She gave him an inquiring look, the nibble to her lower lip curiously vulnerable.

"Though now that I think about it, it'd be incredibly hot for a scene in a Nikki Heat movie." While Rick was anticipating retribution and got both his most charming grin and his hands up defensively, he was disarmed and pinned moments later, and discovered there was both a downside and an upside to the fact that different boundaries as lovers versus colleagues meant she had a much wider range of choices for leverage against him.

They spent the afternoon skinny dipping and relaxing. He used the excuse of slathering sun screen on her to his full advantage. They made meals together, bickered playfully, and made love with abandon. He called Alexis and Martha to check up on them, and she avoided calling the precinct.

She ambushed him during a game of hide and seek in the grove behind the house, and he discovered that being found had its rewards, even though he lost one of his shoes.

It felt – for both of them – complete as they went to bed, tired after a day of sun, sand, and sport. It'd been awhile too since he'd had a woman in his bed to actually sleep with, to rest with, to hold – and for her, that mixture of being uncomfortably comfortable was in full force as she lay beside him, thought swirling in her mind 'til they both fell asleep.

* * *

When she woke in the middle of the night, it was somewhat like sleeping with a furnace. He'd wrapped himself around her from behind, and she could feel of his leg intruding (not unpleasantly…actually rather pleasantly, except for the sweat) between her thighs. His face was nestled into the curve of her neck, and a heavy arm was draped across her ribcage possessively, just below her breasts. She could feel the rhythm of the breathing of deep sleep in the movement of his chest pressed to her back, and if she were very still, even the pounding of his heart. After the momentary disorientation (and the sense of overheating), there was still something remarkable.

She tried to shift, to cool her skin, but his arm tightened around her. While she could think of a bunch of ways to physically extricate herself, unfortunately a good many of them could cause him pain. She tried a shove of his shoulder instead.

"Castle…Rick…Too hot." He opened a sleepy eye, a sort of adorably little-boy expression on his face and it was hard to turn away from the wonder that widened them as he gazed at her in turn. He cleared his throat, swallowing and looked around for the clock. They'd knocked it off the bedstand, the almost full moon the only thing illuminating the room.

An idea popped into his head (well, a second idea popped into his head). "You need to cool off?" he whispered softly, ducking his head to brush his lips over her collarbone, tightening his leg around her as he could feel her start to try to extricate herself again.

"Yeah."

"Trust me?"

"Hmm…" Even in the silver shades of moonlight, the suspicion on her face was adorable.

He took that as assent. "Come on." With a soft groan, he pulled back from her with an abruptness that left her a little boggled, and then a little jerked as she found her hand caught in his and a tug. Naked, he tugged her towards the door, moving faster til they were both running. The smooth planks of the deck gave way to the feel of soft sand beneath their feet, the warm Caribbean air flowing over naked skin as they ran, and he tightened his grip on her hand and didn't slow down a single iota as he angled them headlong into the surf. His feet kicked up warm water moments before hers, and he kept on going til the swell of the surf lifted them off their feet, naked bodies buoyant in the dark night. The feel of water was exquisite over bare skin, surrounding and enfolding them in contrast to the warm night air.

She was laughing, a sound he absolutely reveled in as he glanced over his shoulder to catch her face. He called back to her, "Now this is the way to skinny dip." He released her hand to swim further out, keeping an eye on her as she followed him.

For her, it was a moment that would live forever in her memory - the warm water embracing and surrounding her with the deep rhythm of the ocean lifting her with its swells, the sight of the grin on his face illuminated by moonlight, the starry sky overhead. There was a surreal element to it, a crazy, beautiful, surreal element to being in this magical place with him. "Look," he called to her, and she followed his gaze to see that the water was so clear that her own shadow was visible on the white sandy bottom of the sea below, and the silhouettes of fishes darted through them.

She swam over to him, looped her arms around his neck. He had a wisecrack on his tongue, she could see it writ over his face, and she cut him off with a kiss, trusting her body and her weight to his, trusting him and the sea to keep her buoyant.

* * *

_Author's Note:_ I really do wonder how they'll transition back to New York, and I'm honestly not remotely sure what that'll look like yet.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: I was delighted to get to be at the Castle panel at ComicCon on Sunday, and while I didn't get to interact with the cast (unless you count a shy glance at Stana Katic four feet away, and deciding not to hassle her for an autograph despite her seeming very gloriously gracious with fans even while staff is trying to herd her off), it was just a pleasure be there. They were really incredible fun. There are YouTube clips online with the panel, and they premiered the first moment of Season 3, which has also appeared online since. I sort of prefer my take in "Inevitable", but I do admit to liking Andrew Marlow a very great deal after the panel discussion. My notes from the panel are posted on my LiveJournal. Anyway, seeing the cast spurred me to finally get back to this story. Kavi gave me the excellent advice that I'd be more motivated if I knew where I was going with this. I very much admire Corlando for writing hers out in its entirety before posting, but it "feels" close to its end before Season 3 starts. This is partly short because I'm actually figuring that out. I'd label this perhaps a transition series of vignettes...

* * *

They were due to leave in the morning, and the pull of their lives in New York was tangible on the eve of their departure. She was quieter, and he didn't want to push things, didn't want to rush things after the magical couple of days spent.

Their last morning together, he cuddled her against him while she slept and he watched the sun rise and the way it made her skin glow 'til the light was bright enough to make her eyes blink against it as she woke. And then she closed them again while they made love.

* * *

"You know what I really regret?" he mused aloud as the town car was weaving its way through New York streets. He watched her, wondering how her profile, after literal years of watching her, still caught his attention.

"What?" Her focus was already on her phone. No urgent messages from the precinct – unless one counted the voice mails from Lanie wanting to know what happened and insisting that Kate hit the morgue immediately upon her return. His words broke through her focus, and she lifted her head and raised her eyes to his, her defensive mechanisms on standby to see if she should be alarmed by his words.

"That I never did get to see you in the little red bikini you brought."

That brought a quick smile to her lips, and she rolled her eyes. The town car pulled up in front of her apartment, and he caught her hand as she turned to exit. He wasn't quite sure what to say – he knew he had to go home, wanted to see his daughter, and yet he wasn't quite ready to let her go either.

"See you in the morning?"

She leaned in and gave him a hard, quick kiss while their driver pulled her suitcase out of the trunk. "See you in the morning."

He watched her go in the window and was glad to see her turn back to watch him leave. He sent her exagerrated puppy dog eyes and she laughed before disappearing into her building. He whipped out his phone to text her with, "You're going to miss me tonight. I'm going home to a pair of redheads!"

* * *

However fabulous the vacation (and far too short), it was still good to be back.

It was good to be back in the morgue getting coerced into sharing far more details than she normally would with Lanie – not that the blush she was trying to hide and the smile that kept creeping up on her face didn't give a fair amount away. The temperature of the morgue rose.

When she got to the bull pen, things looked relatively normal. A fresh cup of coffee was sitting at her desk, and Castle was flipping idly through the case files on her desk, disrupting their order, while Ryan and Esposito ribbed him about his sunburn.

"Castle! Get out of my chair."

Just as Ryan was on the verge of taking his own first drag of caffeine from the espresso machine, Esposito dropped the receiver of his phone into its cradle and called out, "Let's roll."

The team geared up and headed out with Castle tailing them…just like old times. He still liked to watch her walk, the intent look in her eyes, and if there was an added twist in his gut of protectiveness, of fierceness now that she really was in his life beyond being a colleague or a friend.

And he daydreamed while she drove, humming under his breath. While she thought he was daydreaming something juvenile and wondering if he would soon shut up, he was dreaming of taking her home to _their home_, building a long-term plot in his head, constructing the scenes like he did in his novels, trying to figure out the right approach...

* * *

Right now, he was still counting his blessings that she let him come home with her that Saturday night after a dinner date, that he got to share her bed. He lay back in it, inhaling the light scent of her - of cherries - from the sheets. He glanced around, and idly reached over to look around in her nightstand.

She took a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair one last time, eyeing herself in the over-the-sink mirror of her bathroom. What she was wearing is undeniably sexy, something Nikki Heat would wear – a confection of seductive satin and garters from Agent Provocateur that she knew would bring Castle to his knees.

Turning, she opened the bathroom door, the golden light from it spilling into her candlelit bedroom. The seductive tease on her lips died abruptly in favor of an all-too-familiar exasperated, "Castle!"

He was nosing around in her bedroom.

"Holy shit, you really do sleep with a gun!" He turned with a guilty cast to the slightly hunched stance of his shoulders, one hand already up, dropping said gun back into her nightstand drawer. And then he saw her, really looked at her. Now it was his turn for the words to fall away, because all he could do was stare at the backlit outline of her standing in the door, one hand on her hip – and the cover model silhouette of Naked Heat had nothing on Kate Beckett.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note:_ I'm getting married in a couple of weeks, so I've been a wee bit distracted and just plain tuckered out burning the candle at both ends – it's the main reason I've totally fallen off the wagon, though trust me, I wish I were writing instead of taking care of all the million details between all heck breaking loose with my clients, and an upcoming wedding. If you've stuck with me and my inability to update, THANK YOU. I have definitely not lost interest, and have been really loving quite a number of the stories on here I've gotten to read lately to feed my addiction, even if my muse got absconded by my wedding planner.

I think we're fairly close to the end of this. I'll try to finish it before the Season 3 start, which I am SO excited about.

* * *

The look on Beckett's face was notable when an article in the New York Times landed on her desk shortly after a homicide they just wrapped. It was "coverage" of the homicide that thinly veiled an excuse to gossip about who she was dating than about the victim or the hard work of her team.

"I'm a detective, not a socialite!" She was seething and it was scary.

Rick was torn between wanting to hide or apologize. He sat in his chair, and abandoned the paperclip daisy chain he was making.

"Kate…" The tone he tried initially was placating, trying to hide the offending article – even if he privately thought they looked great in the grainy photo caught by an enterprising photographer as they were leaving a restaurant.

She held up a hand to forestall the words on his lips. "DON'T…EVEN…"

The glare on her face had Ryan pause briefly as he walked towards her desk, glancing back to silently telegraph to Esposito to be equally wary in his approach. Ryan silently passed her a report, taking the moment while she was distracted in skimming it for salient details to raise both his brows at Castle in a, "What did you do to make her mad?" look. Castle shrugged as eloquently as he dared, eyes frantically attempting to signal innocence. Esposito shot him a clearly disbelieving look.

Beckett, without even looking up from the page, bit out, "Stop that. Esposito, Ryan – go bring this guy in. I want him in interrogation. Castle…we're going back to the morgue, and so help me if you say one tiny little thing on the way down there…let's just say I know where your comic book collection is and am not afraid to hold it hostage."

Castle stared at her, unsure whether to take her seriously, but afraid for the lives of his precious comics, mimed zipping his mouth shut and stood up. He even suppressed his yelp when Esposito beaned him in the back of the head with an eraser on the way to the elevator.

* * *

He insisted on walking her home, still afraid of her long silences in her conversations – the dangerous one where he was afraid she was thinking, and specifically, where he was afraid of what she might be thinking of. She'd been simmering all day, though a hopeful break in their current case also seemed to lighten her mood. "Kate…," he tried again. He wanted to assure her it wasn't that bad. Good press for the Gotham City crew was good for everyone, right? But he stuck with what he knew. "I'm sorry."

She let out a long breath in the chill air. "I am too." The words made his gut clench, his writer brain in full gear depicting worst case scenarios in nanoseconds.

She paused beneath a streetlamp to look up at him, caught the worry in his face. "Rick." She rarely used his name. "It just makes me wonder how this is all supposed to work. What I do matters. It's not just a ride along for me. The girl who was murdered deserves justice, my team deserves credit, and people know about her because 'Nikki Heat' and 'Jameson Rook' are an item? And strangers take pictures of us outside restaurants?"

Glib things sprang easily to his tongue most of the time but he struggled what to say in this moment that mattered. "You're right – about the victim I mean, and your team. And the whole reason I followed _you_ in the first place is because you are that good."

She snorted in disbelief, a tinge of humor shading her words instead of anger as she interjected, "…and because you thought I was hot."

He seamlessly echoed her with a grin, "… and because I thought you were hot…and while I'm confessing, because I wanted your attention and to peel the layers of the Beckett onion…" He sent her a patented Castle smile designed to charm, provoking the predictable roll of her eyes before continuing in a more serious vein. "You're the best at what you do, because you are who you are – and I take that seriously. I am who I am. I can't control the press, and … I can't stop writing Nikki Heat books, I take who I am seriously too. But who I am is also a man in love with you, and so I am asking you to please not let the damned press get … " He turned his head, suddenly self-conscious and aware that she wasn't beside him anymore.

She'd stopped dead in her tracks when he'd told her he was in love with her, so when he looked back, he was a full stride ahead of her. She was in the deep shadow, outside glow cast from streetlamps. He couldn't make out her face, and she was silent. He turned to face her, feeling his heart thudding in his chest.

He'd literally knocked the wind out of her with his words. It was so Castle, in the casual way he'd worked it in, sneaking beneath her guard. She was still mad about the article, though it kept slipping away from her. She stared at him. This was the man who sometimes irritated the hell out of her, who sometimes knew what she was thinking when they were in sync on a case, and yet could sometimes be so damned obtuse, the man who put her in the public spotlight by making her the basis of two books to date and a movie, who sat by her side when she killed her mother's murderer, who pulled her pigtails and bought her a panda bear, and who drove her absolutely crazy – both in bed and out of it.

"Screw the press." She reached for him and dragged his face down to hers in a searing kiss. He wrapped his arms around her, and they stood on the shadowed pavement on a chilly New York night, making out like teenagers.

She almost missed it in the blare from a passing driver honking when he took a brief breath for air and said to her softly, "You are extraordinary."


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note_: For Kavi Leighanna, for both the encouragement and consistently providing me stuff I look forward to. For ignacio2010 who will someday tell me where the handle came from, and for the unexpected and lovely friendship. For Father Vengeance, for reminding me to keep giving new authors a chance to be wowed by their work, just as so many gave me the first time I posted something on this site. :) And Corlando, for the always supportive notes! Longer note at the end...

* * *

Castle lay awake, watching her sleep (not in a creepy Twilight vampire way, just in his own semi-creepy Castle way). While the writer in him was pleased at the storyline, the man in him couldn't believe he'd said "it" first, the "L" word. In almost every other relationship he'd ever been in (with the exception of Kyra Blaine, and the proclamations he'd occasionally made drunk), he was distinctly NOT the one to say it first. But he was sure as hell this time that he'd been thinking it first. More than thinking it first, he'd been thinking of _how_ he'd spring it on her first (preferably with her not spooking, and with all his limbs intact). The skywriting idea was discarded along with having his feelings for her proclaimed in Times Square. Instead, his admission had just tumbled out. It wasn't the story he'd planned, but the reality of her warm body spooned against his outstripped any story. He idly traced the tiny tattoo so few people knew she had, and inhaled the familiar scent of cherries. Nestling in closer to her and let himself drift off to sleep on the reality, not just the dream, of her in his arms, knowing that she knew that he knew that he loved her.

She rose early, long before he did (unless she was jerking him out of bed for an early ride-along…or waking him up in other ways). She knew her way around his loft in the dark, quietly gathering her running gear and changing in his bathroom. She paused in the doorway to gaze at his shadowy form, curled in and vulnerable, boyish with his hair every which way. She lingered for a moment, seriously tempted to wake him.

Outside his building, running in the brisk pre-dawn air air helped her think. The feeling of her body moving reminded her she was vividly alive and awake amidst the background noise of New York city, and the sense of knowing she was loved, beyond feeling loved, added a zing to her step. As she finished her run, she slowed, cooling down, aware that she hadn't said it back. She knew him - knew he was wondering, was turning it over in his mind. There were times she hadn't said it back because she was afraid of being hurt, or unsure if she meant it, or if it was too soon. With Richard Castle came the clarity that it was none of these things, that she'd loved him for years, even when tempted to strangle him into shutting up. Now...now it was a matter of timing, and meeting him in her own way.

When she returned to the loft, it was just getting light and early enough that he was still abed. She slipped in and into his shower, the smell of his soap on her skin turning her churning mind to other things. Her towel-dry was brisk and efficient, and she stepped into his room with just enough light coming through the window. He stared at her sleepily, not entirely ready to be awake if the sight of her dropping her towel to reveal her naked body was a dream.

She pounced. There really wasn't another word for the way she dove onto the bed, the way she ripped the sheet off him with relish (eliciting a yelp as cooler air hit warm body), or the speedy way she replaced said sheet with her own shower-warmed skin. He wasn't slow on the uptake in this arena, reaching for her to tumble her right on her back and show her just what he'd been thinking of before he'd opened his eyes. Rolling her beneath him, he thrust into her, smothering her cry with his mouth, and showed her with all the force and finesse he knew that he'd meant what he'd said.

The sun was a lot higher when they were momentarily done. Breathless after being thoroughly ravaged, she rolled onto her back and choked out a laugh. "I'm so glad your room does not share a wall with Alexis'," she murmured, the usual crispness of her words softened by a sexy raspiness from earlier hoarse cries that he found irresistibly sexy. He flopped bonelessly beside her.

"This is better than crazy sex, without the crazy," he said (unfortunately in his out-loud voice).

She reached over to tweak one of his nipples playfully. "Are you saying I'm better than a deep fried twinkie?"

"No! I mean yes! I mean, there's no comparison." His sex-addled writer-brain tried frantically to grasp for a more apt comparison, territory he knew was icy where women were concerned. "You're not a twinkie! You're like …" He looked at her, trying to scramble for inspiration, and lost his train of thought as he gazed over fair skin, defined curves, the line of her leg and the way it looked casually hooked over his hip, the tumble of dark hair that made her look alluring, the way her eyes were narrowed…studying him, the twinkle in them that let him know that she was just waiting for whatever he was going to babble next. The long-familiarity of watching her for years and the relative newness of having her in his bed clashed in his brain.

"French toast. Waffles. Or oatmeal…" He looked into her eyes. "Chocolate oatmeal?", he offered helplessly.

"Are you thinking of your breakfast?" she deadpanned, in an interrogation room tone.

"I'm thinking of the kind of oatmeal that fills your belly… the kind that you want to wake up to every day, and never get tired of. The right consistency of real, belly-filling gritty, while being sweet…but not too sweet? With…umm…surprises? Like texture?" He looked at her, momentarily distracted by her pursed lips as she regarded him. "With whipped cream on top…"

Her eyes narrowed further, which he interpreted as a prelude to an ear pinch. She was wondering if he knew exactly what he'd said in the bit about wanting to wake up to "oatmeal" every day. "You think everything is better with whipped cream."

He thought it might be safe enough to attempt a breast caress. "You like when I lick…"

She shut him up with the simple expediency of a kiss.

When they came up for air (long, long minutes later), she broke from him physically to get his attention. "Hey, I want you to go for a ride with me later."

He lifted his brows expressively, reaching for her again, and she rolled her eyes at him. "I meant an actual ride."

"Where to?" he asked curiously.

She declined to answer directly, eluding his grasp as she slid her long legs out of bed. "If you're very good this morning, I'll even let you drive."

* * *

True to her word, she did let him drive – though she still refused to let him diddle with the knobs on the radio. They traveled along the banks of the Hudson River, with her giving him terse directions and occasionally staring out the window. He chattered away with outrageous scenarios for Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook to get into, noticing that she was quiet on the drive, her eyes scanning the surrounds. While she didn't seem entirely calm, she also wasn't one of the thousand flavors of edgy that he'd carefully observed over the years to a degree that he should be jumpy.

They ended up in one of Manhattan's suburbs, with East Coast charming brick houses and narrow roads. A little neighborhood downtown was filled with picturesque storefronts, everything from a hardware store, a local grocer, an antique shop, and at the end of the street, a little diner straight out of the 1950s.

When they parked and went into the diner, Castle was surprised to find Jim Beckett there. (He banished the fantasies he'd been entertaining on the drive in from his brain. Fathers had a bizarre way of knowing they were there. His own growing paranoia about Alexis' dating life made him face the unthreatening man in front of them with a gulp.) Jim greeted Castle with a handshake, and his daughter with a long, tight hug before inviting them into the booth he'd occupied. He sat calmly across from them, wrapping his fingers around a mug of coffee to warm them.

"Hi Dad." Kate took a deep breath, fidgeting a little as she sat across from him.

Her father gazed at her expectantly in turn, his face relatively impassive despite his curiosity at her phoned request to meet her. "Hi Katie."

She felt the flutters of nervousness in her tummy rise. She looked over at Rick, who gazed back at her expectantly, and for once, not running his mouth. He was endearing in the moment, a little uncharacteristically shy, still clueless as to what they were doing. She didn't do big gestures the way he did – not the box tickets to the hottest Broadway musical or certain giant panda bears. In her own way, this was as big as she knew to do.

"Dad, you remember Rick…."

Castle tried his best I'm-A-Nice-Guy-smile, practiced on many fathers over the years, wondering where the hell this was going.

"You'd asked me if the article in the New York Times about us dating was true." The article still made her grit her teeth. She was attempting to come to terms with it, but anything that didn't give due respect to the victim or her team pissed her off. "It is, and I said I'd talk about it more later. Sorry you had to find out that way. It was a lot easier to keep boyfriends from you when I wasn't being tailed by the press." She gave her father a small teasing smile at that, and then took a deep breath. "Dad, as crazy as I sometimes think I am for this, I'm in love with Rick. I'd like more opportunities for the two of you to get to know one another."

The look on Castle's face was worth it for the wide eyed shock and the gaping mouth. The look on her father's face was worth it for the tenderness there, the hope in the softness of his eyes that she'd found someone that might love her as much as he did.

* * *

_Author's Note: _The first chapter in "Moments", an earlier fic, is what I have in my mind as what Kate is referencing when she says to her Dad, "You remember Rick…"

I feel like this chapter is the official end to "Simmer", but there IS a 2-part Epilogue, mostly written, on its way to articulate one happy ending.

On a general note, I seem to be less motivated to write during the season when I get my regular Castle fix via TV – though admittedly, I felt somewhat starved of really good Castle-Beckett moments during this one with some rare exceptions (like his face, when she walked by him and said "I'd get you out of jail"). I started writing over the summer hiatus, and now that this winter hiatus is pissing me off, apparently my mind goes back to Castle fanfic. I'm actually not going to abjectly apologize for the long wait (though I hope to do better and don't want to disappoint folks), because life happens and it's been a nutty few months.

I AM going to be enormously grateful for the reviews that have trickled in even when I wasn't writing, for the occasional pokes and prods from people whose voices I admire, for some new fanfic that's kept me inspired by the genre, and for you who are reading this right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me. You may inspire me to write more.


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note:_ I hope your holidays are delightful. Merry Christmas, to those of you who celebrate it! :) (Okay, it's 2minutes into December 26th, making this an officially 'late' Christmas present, but better late than never!)

My goal is to have "Simmer" finished by New Year's. (I thought this would be the epilogue, but as usual, these stories seem to have a mind of their own, so it looks like there may be another chapter and then an epilogue.) I thought I'd turn "Almost, on New Year's Eve" into a series of the year's holidays. We'll see how my muse is. Please do review. It keeps me terribly motivated!

From a sequencing perspective, despite that this got alternative universe before Season 3 began, I can't help but work in some Season 3 references so I'm just going to assume they had the referenced cases involving buried treasure and The Old Haunt without Gina and Josh in the picture. (And Gina and Josh have had so little screen time anyway, this works perfectly well in my head!)

* * *

She finally caved into moving in with him.

Having Alexis talk to her about it really was the straw that broke the camel's back. "It's embarrassing to have you do the walk of shame. How do you expect me to look up to you when you're sneaking around with my dad?" the redhead teased her. Beckett closed her eyes in embarrassment, Castle laughed. "Besides, I've gotten used to having you around."

They started picked up rituals – couple rituals and family rituals both. It started with coffee in the mornings and then French toast on Sundays (with a Bloody Mary for Martha), evenings of laser tag, monthly trips to the zoo to visit Ying-Ying. Alexis started joining Beckett on her early morning runs (Castle flatly refused).

She'd added her own belongings gradually to the loft, until she realized there wasn't a whole lot she needed to keep going back to her apartment for. Rick anticipated her needs, quietly cleaning out the guest room so that she still had her own space to use as a private fortress of solitude for when she needed it. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she needed it less than she anticipated. (There were definitely days, though, when a full day with him at work and then again at home was a bit much, and he could respect that. She learned to not have conversations she expected him to remember while he was writing, or to remember what time it was or where to meet her.)

Her stuff started spreading through the house – first her favorite kitchen accoutrements in his kitchen. The next was a porcelain vase in his living room for the fresh flowers she liked to have around, and then another on his dining table. She was touched, and a little tripped out, to be automatically included in the "meet the parents" of the young man Alexis was dating. (Alexis actually begged her to not leave Castle alone with them.) Her movies got mixed with his, and there was room on his shelves for her books. It was becoming – with almost too much ease – integrated.

* * *

It was spring, and he'd been watching her cagily for days. While she'd grown used to him watching her in a dissecting manner for years, trying to peel the Beckett onion, this particular flavor of stare was getting old. He seemed to twitch peculiarly. On the upside, he was also clearly making an attempt to be on his best behavior. Overall, this made her nervous.

Before she could confront him about it, he surprised her one evening when they were cuddled on the couch in front of the TV, unwinding after a case. He blurted (she'd noticed that many moments of truth-tells with him were often blurts), "If I maybe asked you to marry me, would you maybe say yes?"

She turned her head to stare at him, incredulity on her face masking the quick racing of her heart. "Rick, that's a copout question if I've ever heard one Are you pre-asking me?"

They stared at each other for an endless moment, almost nose to nose. He backpedaled rapidly. "No! No…of course not. I'm just thinking." She stared at him until he raised his hands defensively.

She took a breath and rolled her eyes. "Half-assed, 'maybe' questions deserve 'maybe' sorts of answers."

He nodded, uncharacteristically silent for a few moments until pushing it with, "So that was a maybe?"

"Maybe." Kate replied with a small smile hovering around her mouth.

Martha, shamelessly eavesdropping down the hall rolled _her _eyes. Alexis stepped out of her room, about to join Kate and her father, and was astonished when her grandmother clamped a hand around her elbow and drew her into the diva boudoir. "Not yet! they're having a moment.

"Is he finally proposing?" Alexis exclaimed, with wide eyes.

"No. He's pseudo-proposing and Kate, to her credit really, is non-replying because with that ham-fisted proposal…. Wait, how did you know he was going to propose?"

Blue eyes met blue eyes and Alexis bit her lower lip. "He wanted my blessing. And I picked out the ring setting. But he said he was going to wait a bit. What do you mean pseudo-proposing?

Martha rolled her eyes and explained the situation, causing Castle the Younger to exclaim, "We're going to need to have a family intervention about this. Should I talk to dad or Kate first?"

Martha considered the question for a moment. "Darling, you talk to Kate. She's savvier about these things. I'll deal with your father."

* * *

Martha cornered her disconsolate son in his study. "What's wrong, darling? You look like something the cat dragged in." She draped herself dramatically in a chair and regarded her son and his pouting lower lip.

"Nothing, mother, just thinking."

She scoffed in disbelief. "Oh, come on now, that's not even your writer's block face. That's your stumped-with-your-love life face!" She leaned in, crossing her legs. "Are you contemplating the big leap with our Kate?"

He sent her an astonished look. "How did you know?"

She rearranged her facial features in an expression she used when assuming supreme wisdom resided in her being. "Oh, come on, I know you better than that." He held her gaze, his own disbelieving.

"Alexis told you?"

Faced with potentially erroneously ratting out her own granddaughter, she waved her hand airily. "No darling, I was eavesdropping when you fake-asked her. It was ridiculous. What in the world, one, were you thinking of? And two, what are you intending to do?"

He gave her a roll to his shoulders, a shrug that really hadn't changed much since he was fourteen. The giveaway was the expression in his eyes when he looked at her, a mix of longing for something - or someone - and very real anxiety.

"Well, I made it a habit never to get attached to any of your girlfriends but I will admit to not being able to help myself here. Kate is different. Real. And deserves a real proposal, and you might actually be mature enough now to give one…at last."

This time his expression was sardonic, speaking loads to her, before raking his hands through his hair.

"I just don't know how to ask her. She told me once, a long time ago, she was a one-and-done sort of girl. I put a lot of effort into two proposals, and look where that got me."

"Some would say you have a beautiful daughter, a decent relationship with both of your ex-wives, and a lot of experience about the kinds of relationships you don't want and enough knowledge to realize that you may have, at last, the thing you've always dreamed of. Which doesn't mean it will be easy, but it may actually be worth the work."

This time his stare at her was hopeful. She rose gracefully from her chair and stepped around behind his desk, wrapping her arms around him to hold him to her. Beneath his aftershave, there was something still evocative of little boy smell and she let herself smile with some pride.

They stayed like that for a long moment, words unnecessary between them, until he at last asked in a soft voice, "How do I ask her?"

"That, my dear, I leave to your ample imagination. Just remember the fiasco with the air balloon."

He groaned. The problem was that famous imagination, in the face of what meant so much, he'd hit a dead end.

* * *

Alexis sent her father out on a spurious errand and then plopped down next to Kate on the couch. Kate was studying an old case assiduously, but glanced up at the sound and cushion shift. "Hey honey." The endearments came all too easily to her lips, something she tried not to think about too much. Gauging instantly that this wasn't just a casual conversation, she gave the girl her full attention. "What's up?"

Alexis twisted her hands nervously together. "I feel a little ridiculous asking. What are your intentions towards my dad?"

Taken momentarily aback, Kate tipped her head a bit in consideration. "I love your father. Given that we've lived together a few months and I haven't arrested him yet, it seems to bode well."

They both smiled a little at that, before Kate turned the tables thoughtfully, leaning forward towards Alexis. "I think for this conversation the more important question is, how do _you_ feel about it?"

Alexis felt the challenge of being on the other side of an interrogation that she'd started, and ruefully nibbled at her bottom lip before gazing up at Kate with wide eyes. "He's never been like this with someone. And having you here has been nice. More than nice. Plus…having someone _not _prone to literary embellishments helping me with my college applications is pretty awesome." She paused to collect her thoughts, find the track of where she was going. "I just worry about him, especially when I leave for college. He needs someone who will love him, and keep him grounded."

Taking a breath, Kate replied slowly. "I can do that."

Alexis raised both of her brows. "Forever?"

The word sort of hung in the air between them, and Kate took her time replying. "Forever is a long time, but I can say this. I told your father once that I was a one-and-done sort of girl. I wouldn't be sitting here on this couch with you, having this conversation, if I didn't think…or hope…that he was mine. And in the interest of being completely honest, I have to admit to also being a little skeptical about being wife number three."

Alexis took that, and slowly nodded. "I can see why." Their hands found their way to each other. "Listen, Kate. I love my mom, and there were moments when Gina was really sweet. I sometimes felt kinda bad for her, it was so clear that I always came first."

Kate smiled. "With your dad, you always will come first. As you should."

Alexis nodded somberly. "I know. But I think what I'm trying to say is…I think with you, I'm not ever _not_ first, but I still don't have the sense that you're…second. That maybe there's room for both of us."

Kate lifted her brows, impressed anew by the girl clearly on the cusp of womanhood and that wisdom beyond her years. "You've known from the start I never wanted to or could replace your mother, but I do care for your well-being, and as cliché as it sounds, want it for your sake as much as your father does."

Alexis smiled brightly. "Then you'll say yes? Because trust me, that's for my well-being too." (As daunting as she found the thought of her dad remarrying, the thought of him after losing Kate was one she definitely did not want to contemplate.)

Kate laughed a little. "Yes. At this rate, I might ask him first! Don't tell him though – it'll make him even more obnoxiously cocky."

Kate closed the still-open case file, forgotten on her lap. Satisfied that the challenging, and meaningful, part of the conversation was over, Kate reached for her wineglass again. "Soo…how about a movie? You pick it and we'll get your dad to make popcorn when he gets back from that fake errand you sent him on." She took a large sip.

Alexis eyed her future step-mother, and then opined thoughtfully, "Just so you know, I've always wanted a sibling."

She watched Kate nearly spit out her wine and grinned innocently, turning her attention to choosing a movie. "Look, "About a Boy" is on with Hugh Grant! It's sort of appropriate, don't you think?"

* * *

Esposito scored a wadded spitball to Castle's forehead without even the attempt of a deflection. "Hey, bro, what's going on? You've been a basketcase for days."

Castle stared into space from his usual spot in the precinct bullpen. Kate was sparring in the gym over their lunch break.

He let out a long breath and made a beckoning gesture, pulling the boys into a huddle after a quick glance around. "Look." He pulled out a ring, a stunning mine-cut solitaire in a simple setting.

"Whoah." Ryan pantomimed being blinded.

Behind the crew, Montgomery poked his head in and then let out a long whistle. Castle jumped, "Jeezus, Captain."

Montgomery looked inordinately pleased at sneaking up on them. "I still have the touch. So is that what I think it is?"

Castle made a shushing gesture, making room for them all to close in. "Remember the Carver case with the map and the graveyard, when we found the treasure?"

Esposito snorted. "Bro, I still haven't forgiven you for not calling us to help you dig."

Castle smiled reminiscently. "Yeah, but I don't think I would've gotten a sweaty hug if there were witnesses….Anyway, Beckett made us give the treasure back, but the grateful owners let me buy one of the stones for fair market value." He turned the ring so the stone glimmered in the light.

Ryan asked curiously, ever the romantic, "How're you going to ask her?"

And that's when Castle deflated a bit again. "I'm not sure."

Esposito cuffed him in the shoulder. "You're a writer. You come up with all the most hair-brained ideas for our cases, and you can't figure out how to ask the woman you love to marry you?"

"It's kind of like writer's block!" Castle said defensively.

Ryan offered unhelpfully, with studied earnestness, "You could see if you can work your CIA contact into this, somehow make this a conspiracy."

In the same vein, Esposito added, "I'm sure we can replicate an alien abduction with bright lights and an EMP and interrogate her about marrying you." The two detectives fist-bumped, clearly entertaining themselves.

Montgomery just shook his head. "As funny as this is, let's remember that we want Beckett to be happy." He narrowed his eyes at Castle. "You WILL make her happy right?"

Castle met the three abruptly serious pairs of eyes boring into him at that question. All of a sudden, their little huddle seemed much too hot. "I'm trying."

Esposito scoffed. "To quote the great philosopher Yoda, 'Try? There is no try. Just do.'"

Montgomery straightened up and clapped Castle on the shoulder. "Well, I recommend going with something simple and heartfelt, but don't wait too long. She's already got to know something is up."

* * *

Getting a little tired of him staring at her with more intensity than usual, she turned to him in the middle of the precinct and said, "Are you going to spit it out?"

He tried for innocence. "Spit what out?"

"The question." She stared at him, and he tried not to remember that she always out-stared him.

"What question?"

"The question." She repeated it with a sort of nonplussed patience.

His cleared his throat, though somehow it didn't stop the squeaky note from entering his voice. "That question? The question question?"

"Yes, the one you keep not asking." Her eyebrow eloquently lifted at him.

"I'm ummmm….waiting until I know what you'll say."

"Don't you have to ask it to know what I'll say?"

Esposito, eavesdropping from behind his computer monitor, rolled _his_ eyes. Ryan discreetly waved a $20 and pointed at his ring finger. Montgomery, peering through the blinds of his office window, just shook his head at his two detectives.

"I'm waiting for the right time."

"Your timing usually sucks. How about now?" She put a hand on her hip.

"Now as in right now?" His voice was definitely squeaky, his eyes wide.

"Yes, right here, right now. Calling your bluff." She actually made him sputter. Her smile widened and she sauntered a step towards him. "How about if I ask you? Richard Castle. Will you…?"

Rick jumped up, prodded by the disconcerting feeling that he should at least be standing for this. For once stymied by what to say, he opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. This was not, damn it, following the admittedly vague plans he had in his mind.

She stepped closer to him, the look in her eyes and the smile on her lips calculated to drive all thought from his head. "Would you consider…dinner at Aroma? You've been saying you'd take me back there for ages and we're overdue for their risotto.

"Wait…Yes, but …" He sputtered.

She set a hand on his arm. "Sometimes the straightforward way is best."

Beckett turned to look at the acquired audience, Esposito with an open smirk on his face, Ryan with wide eyes, Montgomery leaning against his now-open office door with a smile. "We're heading out. Anything comes up, call me."

She picked up her coat, pivoted on those impossibly high heels she still managed to pursue suspects in, and headed towards the elevator. Without even looking back, she called over her shoulder, "Coming, Castle?"

He gave the station a look that seemed to waver between relieved and seriously put out. Esposito mimed a choke-collar at him, right up until Beckett sent her team a level look over her shoulder and a lift of her brow just before stepping into the elevator.

* * *

_Author's Note_: These conversations were surprisingly difficult! If you have any constructive feedback on making them more in-character, would appreciate that. Reviews also hugely appreciated! :)


	14. Chapter 14

In the fine form of true procrastination, Castle worked on the challenge of having the marriage conversation with Kate's father first before figuring out the whole proposal thing with Kate.

Baseball season was a special time for Kate and her dad growing up, and the addition of the Castle family certainly added a dimension to the game. Rick surprised Kate and her father with box seats at Yankee Stadium not far from Joe Torre, partly because he enjoyed how adorable Kate was when got girlish around Joe. (He tried to avoid watching Martha flirting – it was pretty much the only reason she showed up to a baseball game.) Jim Beckett was silent and shy with Joe initially – pleased but tongue-tied – right up until an ump screwed up a call, and then they were both out of their seats yelling, which broke the ice.

During the seventh-inning stretch, Kate went for drinks and Castle took the opportunity to slide over next to Kate's dad.

"I have a question for you." He took a deep breath, making sure he had Jim's full attention and discreetly wiping his uncharacteristically damp palms on his jeans. (Alexis, shamelessly eavesdropping a couple seats over held her breath too.)

Jim turned to look at the writer who'd so changed his daughter's life.

Rick took a deep breath, and lowered his voice. "Sir, I'd like to ask your daughter to marry me. It feels a little weird to ask for your permission since she can kick my ass, but I'd at least like your blessing."

Jim's eyes widened in surprise, his brain abruptly taking a screeching left turn from his focus on the game and awe at Joe Torre to focus on Castle and his comment. His outward reaction was merely to turn wide eyes on the writer next to him who was staring back equally intently.

The silence (other than all the stadium noises and the idiot announcers on the loudspeakers) was deafening (in Castle's brain). Castle resisted the urge to babble and Jim contemplated, looking initially at Castle and then through him.

He thought of his daughter, the things she'd seen and been through, her great capacity for love and pain, and the look in her eyes when she looked at Rick and his daughter. He turned his head just a little, catching the sight of Alexis' bright blue eyes also trained hopefully on his over Castle's shoulder.

Eventually, he turned his attention back to the present, still feeling the roil of poignant sadness and also deep pleasure at the thought of his daughter with more family that loved her. Theirs had once seemed so ...diminished...after...

"Katie's never needed my permission, so if she says yes, then I'll stand by her." Jim took a thoughtful sip of his soda, and then added in somberly pleased tone, "When are you going to ask her?"

"I haven't figured that out yet, but I'm working on it. Some kind of surprise…"

Jim remained silent for a moment, digesting that. "Alright. Good luck. I hope she says yes."

Castle hoped it was just Jim's sense of humor. Before he could pursue it further, he spotted Kate returning and abruptly shifted the conversation. "She really got the Lego lodged up in her nose that far? Wow. That's talent. Tell me more about the rebellious years. Did you have any tips on handling that? Heading it off?"

Kate headed this line of questioning off by the simple expediency of shoving the end of a hot dog in Rick's mouth and sending him a smirk.

* * *

Parental permission acquired.

Castle brooded for a day or so before deciding to seek a source, a key witness, so to speak.

He armed himself to approach the Medical Examiner's office.

He was actually a little intimidated by Lanie Parish. She _knew _stuff, but more than that, had an amazing bullshit meter. The one thing that actually made him screw up the courage to show up (armed with coffee) in her turf was the occasional fleeting hint that she rooted for him. (And that he knew without a doubt she had Kate's best interests at heart, which he treasured.)

"Castle, what're you doing here?" She stood hunched over a body, ire in her eyes, a scalpel in her hand. In his vivid imagination, it gleamed in the light.

"I had an idea for a story."

"And I have work to do."

"It's important…. I'll owe you one? A big one?"

One brow winged up in skepticism, but she tugged off the surgical mask, and started stripping off her gloves. "Talk to me."

"So there's a devilishly handsome writer and this beautiful detective, and he's uh…finally got her in his life. And he wants to take the plunge, dive off the deep end, go for a happy ending. The next part of the story needs to be romantic, and special…especially for the detective.

"A fictional story, huh?" she tossed in, rich voice laced with irony and humor. A smile was already growing on her face though. "I'm assuming you came in here because you're stuck somehow and want the inside track." She was not about to repeat the conversation she'd had with Kate, about next steps and relationships. "What are you thinking?"

"Picture this. It's sunset in Italy. Maybe a castle in Florence. Get it? Castle? Or…or I can take her back to the tropical island we umm…first got close at."

Lanie really was the queen of disbelieving looks – the way her brows drew and lifted, the twist of her mouth. She did disbelieving like no one else, except perhaps sometimes Beckett. "You've been watching her for years, and that's is what you've come up with? You've based three bestselling books on her, and that's what you've come up with? Castle, was your planning process for wives numbers one and two like this?"

He held up a hand defensively. "Wouldn't that sweep you off your feet?"

"Has your trying to sweep her off her feet worked before?"

He had to pause at that, aware that there were moments his great charm didn't seem to work on Kate unless she was willing to let him. "Sometimes."

Lanie sighed. "Kate has dreams. Long-buried ones…dreams she thought she'd buried, first with her mother, then Royce, then the like of Sorenson, and sometimes even you, when you were being particularly dense."

"Hey!" He protested that, which died with the narrow eyed look she gave him.

"If you're lucky enough that she decides to marry you, you can cook up all the hair-brained schemes to your heart desires. In fact, it should be pretty fun to watch." She grinned abruptly, with a wicked edge. "You have the rest of your lives to pamper her…if she says yes. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You'll be a lot happier if you figure it out on your own." Her smile only grew at the puppy eyes he flirtatiously sent her way. "How about this for a tip? Keep it simple and heartfelt. Let me remind you that the times you've most been in her good graces were when you offered a simple apology and were just there for her when she needed it. She already knows you can make the grand gestures. Getting her a panda baby proved that." She grinned again, just at the memory of it. "One option to think about – don't over script it, pick a moment, in the moment." She paused, and then cinched her point with a poignant little factoid. "She told me once a long time ago it's what her father did for her mother."

"She told you that? In what context?" he asked, intrigued.

She shrugged offhandedly. "We were talking about what we wanted."

"What do you want?"

"Someone who'd walk through fire for me, and bring me breakfast in bed afterward", she answered promptly, with a fierce edge to her voice.

He regarded her. "You're one of the most upbeat people I know, particularly given that you carve up dead people to figure out why they died and spend most of your day in a lab. Look at Perlmutter. You're fierce about your friends, meticulous about your work. I wouldn't have anticipated someone like you for a Medical Examiner, for similar reasons that I didn't expect to find someone that looks like Kate as a detective. Beauty and brains, and I'm not just buttering you up." He raised his hands defensively again at one of _those_ looks from her.

"Just saying. You have a story. I don't know it, but I hope you find that… what you're looking for, what you deserve."

He thanked her and let himself out of her office, catching her looking pensively after him.

* * *

While Kate was testifying in court and Alexis was in school, he closeted himself in his office, and opened the drawer with his moleskins. He started with his notes. It'd actually been awhile since he'd read some of the ones from their earliest cases together. God help him if she ever read these. Some of his scribbles were terminology, technicalities, observations about murder cases and ideas for book scenes. Some of his notes were observations on Kate as he attempted to flesh out his heroine – and some of _that_ was downright embarrassing. In the margins of a page, he'd written, "_She smells like cherries." _ Would she find that endearing or creepy? Probably creepy.

He laughed out loud. One of his moleskins was an entire page of names crossed out. And she'd thought Nikki Heat was bad. "Lexi Fury. Roxi Fury…Roxi Heat. Nikki Fury..."

He thumbed through more pages. Looking at these pages now, with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, it could not have been more glaringly obvious that he'd been in love with her. Sure there were insights contributed from Lanie, Esposito, Ryan, Montgomery, and his other friends at the 12th, but half the notes were on the way he thought Nikki might hold her head, or trying to capture adequately in words the way she looked when she was interrogating someone in the interview room. The way she didn't let "perps" (or "dirtbag" old-school, Montgomery style) slide much. He'd gone through pages of adjectives trying to describe her – "mesmerizing", "haunting good looks", "intelligent", "comic book fan!". Had he ever been as captive by a woman? Maybe not since Kyra Blaine, so unguardedly, though he'd been another person then.

He found whole pages attempting to describe Kate's compassion, his notes from countless times she'd told relatives their loved ones were gone, the way she kept to the facts with empathy, without padding truth with meaningless platitudes.

"Nikki on a motorcycle. Sexy black leather." Oh, the fantasies he'd had with that image in his head. He grinned.

"All the songs make sense." He puzzled over that line for a moment, hastily jotted in the margins of a page. Oh right…her description of being in love. He grinned as he mentally tried that litmus test. Love songs made sense to him.

He found another note for his next book. It was a scrapped idea for Nikki breaking Rook out of jail, another litmus test of love according to Martha. He didn't even need to think about that - he'd sure as hell break Kate out of jail, though he was also fairly sure there was a far higher likelihood of it being the other way around.

He found the sketched outlines of the scene where Jameson Rook disarms Nikki Heat in the second book, gets back into her good graces, using truth and a sincere apology. He remembered well his own lesson in that. He remembered how unflinching her quest for truth was. As a writer, it was all relative. Maybe that's why she was his compass point, the North Star, the one he couldn't walk away from.

She was a detective, but more than being a detective. She made a difference in people's lives. What was most important to her? He sank into the question, staring at the pages of his moleskins the way she stared at murder boards.

_Truth._

* * *

_Author's Note:_

This was hard. I find Lanie one of the most challenging characters to depict in a more than one-dimensional way. I think my biggest fear with her is being a characterization, so I've avoided her in the past despite the key role I think she plays in Kate's life. I do think the actress, Tamala Jones, has some of the best facial expressions in the series though!

Reviews are highly, highly motivating! :) They not only spur me with ideas, it gives me the extra impetus when I'm just stuck and unmotivated. And as always, huge, huge gratitude for even sticking with me this far and reading along. Next, and last chapter, is the Epilogue!


	15. Epilogue

Kate was miserable. She blamed Ryan and his Chinese take-out leftovers in the precinct fridge. Food poisoning left her nauseous, throwing up, and drained of energy. She alternated between lying on the bathroom floor of the thankfully large master bathroom suite bathroom of the loft, and curled up on her side in their bed. In the middle of the night, after dry heaving left her spent, Rick was comforting her by massaging light circles on her back, a bowl of clear broth nearby.

He watched her with concern, hating to see her suffering – though hearing her swear in Russian sent his imagination off in possibilities they could get into when she wasn't feeling so sick.

"Stop staring. It's creepy." Her voice lacked much vehemence to it. There was even a small smile. It'd been a really long time since she'd had someone care for her so tirelessly when she was feeling this shitty.

He smiled a little. _Truth._

He brushed her dark hair back from her face, tracing along her jawline lovingly. Cradling her lightly with his other arm, her helped her sip some soup to replace the fluid loss. On a vibrant Saturday night in New York City, it occurred to him that there was no place he'd rather be.

"I'd do this the rest of our lives if you'll let me," he said softly against her temple.

Her lids fluttered shut, as she muttered back, "What? Watch me puke?" A moment later, her dark eyes popped wide open, disbelieving gaze turned on him from a face pale from illness. "Is that…"

Before she could finish her sentence, he realized he'd picked his moment and committed to it. "Yeah. I want to marry you. I want a family with you. I want to hold you in sickness and in health."

Her breath hitched, and she swallowed, too stunned by his words that the nausea became a distant backdrop for a moment. "You're asking me now?" Her voice hitched.

For once, he didn't have to screw up his courage. He didn't have to stutter over the words. "Yeah, I'm asking you now, because I want to be the one doing this the rest of our lives, pulling your pigtails, caring for you... I can be more explicit. Katherine Beckett, will you let me be your one and done?"

This was working out better than he'd expected. She was in no condition to flee or injure him if she didn't like his proposal. He looked into her eyes, grinning down at her playfully.

After a moment of silence, she laughed weakly, her voice raw and hoarse. "Yes."

* * *

It took Kate another two days to feel fully back to herself. She was a little uncomfortable with the rock on her hand, glad to have a much less conspicuous band for being on the job. She was delighted it came from their treasure hunt!

It became a precinct joke that Castle asked her when she was down for the count and too weak to resist his wiles.

She cornered Alexis to find out just what Castle had planned (relieved it didn't involve a hot air balloon, though his plot was still conspicuous) for his original proposal and hatched her own plan.

Kate feigned surprise when he presented her with tickets to Skye Blue's New York City concert.

The singer looked healthier than she had the last time they'd seen her in concert, not long after they'd solved her sister's murder and helped her on the road to recovery from addiction and loss. Her cheeks had lost the despairing hollows, the bags under her eyes gone. Her words in song were still filled with some of the grief and passion of her sister's loss, but an underlying strength gave her voice the extra timbre that reviews raved about. Mid-concert, she paused to narrate the origins of some of her songs and took a moment beneath the spotlights to call out to the crowd, "There are a couple special guests tonight, Kate and Rick. Without them, you would not be hearing this."

Rick stared in surprise at his girlfriend…err…fiancé. He'd thought he known the script for the night, and then abandoned it in favor of the simplicity of a wonderful evening out with his family. Kate looked adorably flustered with color high in her cheeks, and tugged his hand to rise with her to cross to the stage when summoned by Skye. Alexis looked on, clapping with starry eyes. Kate was stunning beneath the lights in a clinging silver dress that he smugly thought highlighted the sparkle from her ring, not to mention her figure. The hand he slid around her waist was proudly proprietary as long as he could get away with it.

Rick waved to the crowd with a performer's ease, surprised again that Kate was handed the mic from Skye. His future wife looked into his eyes, in front of the huge crowd and his family, and asked, "Richard Alexander Rodgers, will you marry me?"

For once, he was dumbfounded, speechless. Her smile was brilliant as she gazed at him, with the kind of luminosity that always struck him, even if she hadn't surprised him like this. He managed, from somewhere, a resounding "Yes", and the crowd exploded when she reached up to take his face between her palms and give him the kind of passionate kiss that made his toes curl. Good natured catcalls followed them as they exited the stage after huge hugs from Skye, and then a tackle from Alexis.

Skye Blue, singing about love, sang to them this night. He leaned into Kate, his arm around her waist, and whispered softly, "Hey, Kate…the song make sense."

* * *

The invitations to the wedding were highly coveted. Kate let him talk her into sending out hand drawn invitations that looked like a location map if you folded it in just the right way. She drew the line at making guests think they were abducted by aliens on the drive to the reception site, and waking up in a mysterious location.

On the last weekend of summer before Alexis left for her another year of college, her dad was getting married and his loft was a flurry of activity. She watched his mirror reflection attempt to tie his tie twice before taking over for him with an affectionate, misty smile.

Their wedding day was a quiet, a small civil affair without the hullaballoo that attended his first two marriages. She went for simple and elegant in a slim ivory gown without frills, its beauty in the exquisite tailoring and the way its seams followed her figure. It made her beauty glowingly ethereal. Lanie made a minute adjustment to Kate's hair, pinned up with a gardenia tucked low behind her ear. The only jewelry she wore was her mother's ring around her neck, her engagement ring on her finger, and the enormous diamond studs that were a gift from Martha and Alexis.

Rick and Kate chose to get married without attendants by the mayor in the small but opulent Trustees Room of the New York Public Library. Kate had smiled when she'd arrived that day, remembering the time she arrested him not too far from where they were to be wed, shortly after they'd met and Martha told her where to find him while he was evading arrest. It meant something to them that his old refuge was the site of their wedding. Their 12th precinct friends were there, along with his Gotham city poker crew, their guests seated in concentric circles around them.

He had Alexis walk him down the aisle, his daughter looking far too grown-up in peacock blue iridescent silk. They stood together by Judge Markway, waiting for Kate to appear.

Before they started the long journey down the aisle, Jim Beckett cleared his throat as he leaned in to whisper softly to his daughter, "Your mother would have been really happy to see this." However trite the words, they can never get old. The unshed tears added a luminosity to her eyes as they met Rick's steadfast gaze while she walked down the aisle to meet him.

Alexis relinquished her father in a gesture that curiously mirrored Jim Beckett's handing off of his daughter, and Jim smiled at the redhead and escorted her to their seats beside a dramatically, yet sincerely, misty-eyed Martha.

His vow included a willingness to break her out of jail should the occasion arise, to the puzzlement of many of their guests. Montgomery pantomimed not being able to hear that.

Lanie took pleasure in watching Castle's face, at the awe on it. He felt awed that he got to be standing up there with Katherine Beckett, that she was finally "his" as much as he was hers. In truth, he looked a bit gobsmacked.

Madison's restaurant catered the reception and the food is gastronomic heaven. Madison couldn't resist leaning in to whisper loudly at Kate, as she personally presented the main course with a flourish, "I told you you wanted little Castle babies!"

Somehow it seemed apropo that in the middle of the reception, another thought hit him as he was spinning his new bride on the dancefloor. "I was thinking," he said, leaning in to whisper, "...maybe the therapist knows more than he let on!"

She rolled her eyes, an expression so familiar it just made him grin. "Ryan and Esposito closed the case without us hours ago." He looked so crestfallen that she leaned in to kiss his downturned lower lip. "It's okay," she whispers, her lips playing over the corner of his mouth. "This way we won't be distracted….later…"

* * *

The papers, of course, had a field day with their wedding. "Famous author weds his muse in fairytale romance" – it was practically guaranteed to tick Beckett off. Fortunately, she was honeymooning with Castle in Italy. They honeymooned in Italy. He loved showing her Italy, and he saw Italy like he'd never seen it before through her eyes.

Paula had her hands full in New York dealing with the press. Nikki Heat books flew off the shelves, and fan sites were rife with rumors that there was a code that supposedly revealed the love letter embedded throughout the first three books.

Esposito rolled his eyes at that. "You didn't need a damned code to figure that out." He tossed the paper aside, and glances over at the empty desk, with its anally organized paperwork and bins, and the equally empty ridealong chair.

"Hey Ryan, time to roll. Field trip to 34th. I've got a bet with Karpowski that we close at least four cases before Beckett and Castle get back from their honeymoon."

* * *

_**Author's Note:**_

First, I wish you a very happy new year! :) May all you long for come to pass in the coming year.

Thank you for reading this, for being along with me on the journey, for keeping me motivated in a creative endeavor that has really brought me a great deal of satisfaction. I hope I depicted favorite characters in a way that you enjoyed - it's the whole point of writing.

Any constructive criticism on the overall arc of the story would be great, especially for me to keep in mind as I look to the next one. (I'd also appreciate suggestions on the next one! I'm contemplating turning "Almost" - a one-shot - into a longer story arc as a series of snapshots of holidays/celebrations over the course of a year. I'm open to options. Things you're NOT interested in seeing is good to know too! :)

Thank you thank you thank you.


End file.
